#as always when I draw whole scenes and remember that coloring those is difficult

[firekitten830]

thinking about gio .... tell us more about him he's literally silly + i like him so much

YOUVE ACTUVATED . MY AUTISM

Makes a bulleted list

-full name Giovanni Morningstar, both of them chosen rather than given. Ooc I chose Giovanni because he is actually vaguely based on my pc from a different ttrpg, and that characters middle name is Giovanni. And Morningstar is a reference to The Devil. like from the bible dksgsjhd

-his divine blood specifically comes from Sharess, goddess of hedonism and indulgence that vanished when dnd 5e came out during the second sundering . So it is no surprise he is motivated almost entirely by hedonism

-he does not know this.

-he’s definitely not her only descendant but he’s her only descendant that inherited any of her magic

-he was not always a tiefling

-he didn’t always have access to his divine magic

-the previous two points were sparked by the same event

-he was born in waterdeep! Not baldurian but gets around enough to know some things

-wanted magic desperately but had absolutely 0 talent for it before his divine magic awakened so he learned the next best thing: stealing shit. Man has been conning and pickpocketing and just generally getting up to thievery and tomfoolery since he was like. 8 (charlatan background)

-folk hero background could fit him pretty well too! Before he got Tadpoled he sorta wandered from place to place helping common folks and robbing rich people blind. Sort of a Robin Hood type guy but he did also keep a good bit of money lol

-he’s a trans man :] no surgeries and he doesn’t want them, though he does take wizard testosterone or whatever it would be in dnd. Probably a potion or something

-queer and poly!! I imagine he has a couple lovers across the sword coast, some he’s going steady with and others he’s sort of off and on with. He’s so lucky he lives in a world where teleportation exists and is not that hard all things considered im so jealous fr (I’ve also decided that his dream guardian looks suspiciously like one of his boyfriends). Worm nerfing his magic has unfortunately made keeping in touch a bit harder but he’s been managing

-his blood is a pretty potent magical power source and several people have tried to abduct him to use him as a conduit for spells or rituals because of this. I imagine after That Scene™️ with Astarion he was like “oh shit I should’ve warned him about that. Oh well he seems fine” . In the moment he was too focused on there being a hot vampire straddling him

-his tattoos are tied to his magic and glow when he casts spells. You can tell which way he’s about to fucking get you because he’s conveniently color-coded

-may or may not be on the brink of turning into a mind flayer but I’m sure that’s like. Fine.

WAIT I just remember I made a dnd character sheet for him before I ever got bg3 and I wrote a whole background thing as well as a value/ flaw for him . I’ll put those under a read more tho this is already kinda long

this part is written ooc!!

“Sharp, charismatic, and hedonistic to a fault. He has a silver tongue and a knack for deception, able to lie his way into and out of nearly any situation. He’s been driven out of many towns for his infernal heritage, alongside the myriad cons and schemes he often pulls on the wealthy, though he’s welcomed into just as many as a minor celebrity, and in some cases, a hero. This suits him just fine, though; he’s always been one to dance from place to place anyway. He enjoys finery of all kinds, and is happy to trade fine food, drink, clothing and accessories for coin… though he much prefers to offer favors as payment. He does have many talents after all; a quick-fingered thief, an excellent negotiator, a ruthless conman, a somewhat formidable sorcerer, a gifted storyteller, and if it suits your fancy, an escort (though he does charge extra for events)… as well as some other things, of course~”

“It is fairly difficult to draw his ire;he’s more than willing to forgive and forget most wrongs against him. But it would be wise not to test his limits too much; his normally capricious manner becomes cold and relentless when he feels punishment is owed. People who hurt those he cares about often walk away with gruesome scars… if they walk away at all.”

And then I have a ummm ideals and flaw section written in character cause these are on his character sheet

Ideals: “The safety and happiness of those close to me matters far more than any laws, or the ‘greater good’”

Flaws: “I’ve been called self-serving on many occasions, and I’m always weak to a bit of liquor and a pretty face”

I am sure I will think of more things to say about him I inevitably always do but I’m a little sleepy so I’m ending this post now!!

#necro-hamster #giovanni morningstar #bg3 #bg3 tav #my ocs #combat answers #asks

[vhalesa]

I mean Akko would do that, right?

And with looking at this drawing y'all are now obligated to watch 'The Mitchells vs. the Machines'. It's great, I promise.

#little witch academia #akko kagari #lwa #shiny chariot #the mitchells vs the machines #art #crossover #this was so much fun to draw #even if I suffered a lot #as always when I draw whole scenes and remember that coloring those is difficult #those are all very serious adressess what do you mean they are not #yes I spend forever on the second panel #don't ask questions #akko should have just called diana #because diana would have said yes

[meruz]

once again i am answering asks in a big compilation post. included is... gotham, patrick stump, tips about drawing backgrounds, tips about drawing in general, links to my faq, and infinity train

like.... the tv series? No... I’ve drawn dc comics fanart before, though. But it’s been years since I’ve been really into it. I like jumped ship like 10 years ago when the New 52 happened LOL.

AFJHDSLKGH I’m sorry I (probably) won’t do it again??

Actually full disclosure I have a truly cringe amount of p stump drawings/photo studies in my sketchbook right now LOL. He’s just fun to draw... hats, glasses, guitar, a good shape... but I don’t think I’ll rly post those until I can hide them in another big sketchbook pdf.. probably Jan 2022. Stay tuned........ (ominous) 

(ominous preview)

These are all sort of related to backgrounds/painting so I grouped them together even though they’re pretty much entirely separate questions.... ANYWAYS

a) How is it working as a BG artist? Is it hard? What show are you drawing for?

I think you’re the first person to ever ask me about my job! Being a background artist is great. It’s definitely labor intensive but I think that could describe pretty much any art job (If something were rote or easy to automate, you wouldn’t hire an artist to do it) and I hesitate to say whether its harder or easier than any other role in the animation pipeline. Plus, so much of what truly makes a job difficult varies from one production to the next, schedule, working environment, co-workers etc. But I will say that I think while BGs are generally a lot of work on the upfront, I think they’re subject to less scrutiny/revisions than something like character/props/effects design and you don’t have to pitch them to a room like boards. So I guess it’s good if you don’t like to talk to people? LOL

A lot of my previous projects + the show I’ve worked on the longest aren’t public yet so I can’t talk about em (but I assure you if/when the news does break I won’t shut up about it). But I’m currently working on Archer Season 12 LOL. I’m like 90% sure I’m allowed to say that.

b) ~~~THANK YOU!! ~~~

c) What exactly do you like to draw most [in a background]?

@kaitomiury​ Lots of stuff! I really like to draw clutter! Because it’s a great opportunity for environmental storytelling and also you can be kind of messy with it because the sheer mass will supersede any details LOL. 

I like to draw clouds... I like to draw grass but not trees lol,,, I like to draw anything that sells perspective really easily like tiled floors and ceilings, shelves, lamp posts on a street etc.

d) Do you have any tips on how to paint (observational)?

god there’s so much to say. painting is really a whole ass discipline like someone can paint their whole life and still discover new things about it. I guess if you’re really just starting out my best advice is that habit is more important than product. especially with traditional plein air painting, I find that the procedure of going outside and setting up your paints is almost harder than the actual painting. There’s a lot of artists who say “I want to do plein air sometime!!” and then never actually get around to doing it. A lot of people just end up working from google streetview or photos on their computer.

But going outside to paint is a really good challenge because it forces you to make and commit to lighting and composition decisions really quickly. And to work through your mistakes instead of against them via undo button.

My last tip is to check out James Gurney’s youtube channel because hes probably the best and most consistent resource on observational painting out there rn. There’s lots other artists doing the same thing (off the top of my head I know a lot of the Warrior Painters group has people regularly posting plein air stuff and lightbox expo had a Jesse Schmidt lecture abt it last year) but Gurney’s probably the most prolific poster and one of the best at explaining the more technical stuff - his books are great too.

e) Do you have tips for drawing cleanly on heavypaint?

@marigoldfool​ UMM LOL I LIKE ONLY USE THE FILL TOOL so maybe use the fill tool? Fill and rectangle are good for edge control as opposed to the rest of the heavy paint tools which can get sort of muddles. And also I use a stylus so maybe if you’re using your finger, find a stylus that works with your device instead. That’s all I’ve got, frankly I don’t think my drawings are particularly clean lol.

f) Tips on improving backgrounds/scenes making them more dynamic practicing etc?

Ive given some tips about backgrounds/scenes before so I’m not gonna re-tread those but here’s another thing that might be helpful...

I think a good way to approach backgrounds is to think of the specific story or even mood you want to convey with the background first. Thinking “I just need to put something behind this character” is going to lead you to drawing like... a green screen tourist photo backdrop. But if you think “I need this bg to make the characters feel small” or “I need this bg to make the world feel colorful” then it gives you requirements and cues to work off of.

If I know a character needs to feel overwhelmed and small, then I know I need to create environment elements that will cage them in and corner them. If a character needs to feel triumphant/on top of the world then I know I need to let the environment open up around them. etc. If I know my focal point/ where I want to draw attention, I can build the background around that.

Also, backgrounds like figure compositions will have focal points of their own and you can draw attention to it/ the relationship the characters have with the bg element via scale or directionality or color, any number of cues. I think of it almost as a second/third character in a scene.

Not every composition is gonna have something so obvious like this but it helps me to think about these because then the characters feel connected and integrated with the environment.

Some more general art questions

a) Do you have any process/tips to start drawing character/bodies/heads?

I tried to kind of draw something to answer this but honestly this is difficult for me to answer because I don’t think I’m that great at drawing characters LOL. Ok, I think I have two tips.

1) flip your canvas often. A lot about what makes human bodies look correct and believable is symmetry and balance. Even if someone has asymmetrical features, the body will often pull and push in a way to counterbalance it. we often have inherent biases to one side or another like dominant hands dominant eyes etc. you know how right-handed artists will often favor drawing characters facing 45 degrees facing (the artist’s) left? that’s part of it. so viewing your drawing flipped even just to evaluate it helps compensate for that bias and makes you more aware of balance.

2) draw the whole figure often. I feel like a lot of beginner artists (myself included for a long time) defer to just drawing headshots or busts because it’s easier, you dont have to think about posing limbs etc. But drawing a full body allows you to better gauge proportion, perspective, body language, everything that makes a character look believable and grounded.

Like if you (me) have that issue where you draw the head too big and then have to resize it to fit the proportions of the rest of the body, it’s probably because you (I) drew the head first and are treating the body as an afterthought/attachment. Sketching out the whole figure first or even just quick drawing guides for it will help you think of it more holistically. I learned this figure drawing in charcoal at art school LOL.

oh. third mini tip - try to draw people from life often! its the best study. if you can get into a figure drawing/nude drawing class EVEN BETTER and if you have a local college/art space/museum that hosts those for free TREASURE IT AND TAKE ADVANTAGE OF IT, that’s a huge boon that a lot of artists (me again) wish they had. though if youre not so lucky and youre sitting in a park trying to creeper draw people and they keep moving.. don’t let that stop you! that’s good practice because it’s forcing you to work fast to get the important stuff down LOL. its a challenge!

b) I’ve been pretty out of energy and have had no inspiration to draw but I have the desire to. Any advice?

Dude, take a walk or something.... Or a nap? Low energy is going to effect everything else so you gotta hit that problem at its source.

If you’re looking for inspiration though, I’d recommend stuff like watching a movie, reading a book, playing video games etc. Fill up your idea bank with content and then give yourself time/space to gestate it into new concepts. Sometimes looking at other art works but sometimes it can work against you because it’s too close. 

Also something that helps me is remembering that art doesn’t always have to be groundbreaking... like it’s okay to make something shitty and stupid that you don’t post online and only show to your friend. That’s all part of the process imo. If you want to hit a home run you gotta warm up first, right? Sports.

I should probably compile everytime i give tips on stuff like this but that’s getting dangerously close to being a social media artist who makes stupid boiled down art tutorials for clout which is the last thing i want to be... the thing I want to stress is that art is a whole visual language and there are widely agreed upon rules and customs but they exist in large part to be broken. Like there's an infinite number of ways to reach an infinite number of solutions and that’s actually what makes it really cool and personal for both the artist and the viewer. So when you make work you like or you find someone else’s work you like, take a step back and ask yourself what about it speaks for you, what about it works for you, what makes it effective, how to recreate that effect and how to break that effect completely, etc. And have a good time with it or else what’s the point.

for the first 2, I direct you to my FAQ

For the last one, I don’t actually believe I’ve ever addressed artwork as insp for stories/rp but I’ll say here and now yeah go ahead! As long as you’re not making profit or taking credit for my work then I’m normally ok with it. Especially anything thats private and purely recreational, that’s generally 100% green light go. I only ask that if you post it anywhere public that you please credit me.

(and I reserve the right to ask you to take it down if I see it and don’t approve of it’s use but I think that case is pretty rare.)

a) @lemuelzero101 Thank you!!! I haven’t played Life is Strange but actually  that series’ vis dev artist Edouard Caplain is one of my bigger art inspirations lately so that’s a really high compliment lol. And yeah I hope we get 5-8 too...!

b) Thank you for sticking around! I’ve been thinking about Digimon and Infinity Train in tandem lately, actually. They’re a little similar? Enter a dangerous alternate world and have wacky adventures with monsters/inanimate objects that have weird powers... there’s like weird engineers and mechanisms behind the scenes... also frontier literally starts with them getting on a train. Anyways if anyone else followed me for digimon... maybe you’d like Infinity Train? LOL

c) @king-wens-king I’M GLAD MY ART JUST HAS PINOY VIBES LOL I hope you are having a good day too :^)

a, b, c, d) yessss my Watch Infinity Train agenda is working....

e) aw thank you!! i think you should watch infinity train :)

#ask #trying this new thing where i tag people in the body of the post instead

[anntoldst0ries]

shinrin-yoku (Ethan x MC)

Book: Open Heart Pairing: Dr Ethan Ramsey x F!MC (Dr Noelle Valentine) Word Count/Rating: ~1.7k, PG Summary: When life's difficulties hit, Noelle navigates her way through them by turning to the nature. Category: Hurt & Comfort Warnings: mentions of trauma

A/N: May is a Mental Health Awareness month and here in the UK the theme is nature. My MC, just like me, runs to the woods when things get tough. It helps her clear her head and reconnect with inner strength.

I struggle with mental health myself and it’s important for me to speak up and address the subject. There is nothing worse than shaming or discrediting someone’s difficult feelings. It’s fine not to be fine.

If you struggle alone, please don’t. My inbox will welcome you with open arms. Two heads are better than one, even if we just complain, at least we can complain together 💜

For @choicesmaychallenge2021 Day 13 - Mental Health

SHINRIN-YOKU - A Japanese term for ‘forest bathing’ or the sense of well-being you experience while in nature.

~~

It all starts with a seed. This tiny element which, without aid, is sentenced to certain death. But give it the right soil. Give it water, sun. And it can grow. Into something big. Powerful. Scary.

~~

She is five years old.

They live in a townhouse, a classy Victorian era building. Undistinguished, one of many merging into the background of a typical London street. The colors are also very standard,  dirty white married to ivory beige, bar for the deep green door - their rebel child.

For the random passerby, it’s nothing special. But for her, the walls of a storey house encapsulate the whole world.

The garden behind the house is neat and clean, visibly well taken care of. She doesn’t remember exact details anymore, but she remembers begging her parents to go camping in the garden with her brother. The ticklish feeling of long and slim blades of grass on her tiny feet. Looking at the stars with pure awe and delight, that only the unspoiled mind of a child is capable of.

The plot of land that the house has been built on borders a beautiful forest. A wooden fence separates the two.

To her, it’s a passage to a magical world.

A world without any particular order, living its own life, unconstricted by rules. Not in the slightest does it resemble the garden on her side of the fence, where things grow according to the rules laid out by the adults.

There is a feeling inside her that she’s too young to name, to throw it in lingual context. It’s not until years later that she realized what it had been. Freedom. To grow however you please. To be what you want to be.

Robust, effuse trees tower over her, making her feel so small. As if she hasn’t already been feeling small enough, living in a world full of giants.

But they mean something else too. They bring a secret and a promise. Promise of a bigger world out there, far from the confines of the place she calls home.

The forest draws her, singing a melody that only her heart can understand. One day, she will be a part of it.

~~

She lives the teenage dream life.

That’s what everyone says.

She doesn’t have any real problems. She’s lucky not having to worry about money. She’s got friends. Her family is great. She just needs to stop whining. Her life is perfect.

Their words, not hers.

None of them know what happens behind closed doors.

The childhood forest is a cloudy memory. Her home is now thousands of miles away, in a city with a giant red bridge, which for some bizarre reason has ‘golden’ in its name.

But the call from nature doesn’t care about distance. It can find you about anywhere. It’s different and yet the same.

Because nature beats in one rhythm and speaks in the same language, everywhere.

The morning is chilly and humid. She’s wearing a wooly coat, carelessly threw on a pair of PJs hiding underneath.

Her steps are brisk, breathing short and heartbeat elevated. Something’s bothering her blanched face.

The voice, again.

When it first appeared, she thought it had her best interest at heart. Used to give her advice and like a good friend, ream her out when she did something bad.

Over time, things took a turn for the worse.

Snarky comments. Casually mentioned wrongdoings. Feedback on what she could have done better, differently.

Noelle hoped the voice would go away on its own.

It hasn’t.

Not only did the voice not go away, but it was actually growing stronger with each passing day. Became more vocal. Judgmental. Openly hostile.

It fed on her fears.

It’s your fault - it told her - that your parents are getting divorced.

You are not good enough.

Even a lie, repeated enough times, will finally become the truth. And so it did for her, to the point where she couldn’t distinguish her own voice from the voice of the tormentor. Sounds faded into one.

Whoever said words can cut like a knife was right. But those who knew thoughts could leave scars that are much deeper, were truly wise.

The young, beautiful girl who never hurt a soul, became a hostage. A prisoner locked in the jail of her own head.

A giant tear rolled down her face. Made of all the words her heart couldn’t say.

She hugged the tree tightly and inhaled the woodsy aroma, the scent filling her lungs fully.

It’s sensuous.

Just like that, she is small again.

~

She’s got all that she ever wanted.

Degree from one of the best medical schools. Graduating with honors and glowing recommendations from even the strictest professors, who kept assuring her that her future in medicine is so bright it’s actually blinding. Then, a dreamy residency in one of the most prestigious hospitals in the country.

Pretty impressive, right? Even a fool could see that. But the only fool whose opinion she cared about, couldn’t. All these things were clearly not good enough for Ethan Ramsey to stay.

She wasn’t good enough for him to stay.

Not longer than a year ago he was just a concept, an ideal without a face, body and voice. To her, he was a celebrity, a hero, someone whom mortals don’t have access to.

It was preposterous to consider for even a second Dr Ramsey could actually see something in an intern.

Standing among the moss-covered trees, every fiber of her being was filled with the thought of him.

Did the Amazonian forest remind him of her, just like every forest around reminded her of him?

Just when she won the battle for her career, she lost another. Because life had to be a zero-sum game.

As painful as that would have been, she wished she had something to hold onto. A scene she could replay in her mind. An image of him walking away. Or saying goodbye.

But he left without a word.

That was the pattern. That was history repeating itself.

She took her shoes off and stepped on the soil frosted with morning dew. It’s cold and wet. It’s refreshing. She is grounding. Reconnecting with Earth.

Tunes in with the rivers of grass, towers of trees, fences of bushes.

If the trees could speak, they’d tell stories not many people would believe in.

Tales of heartbreaks. Parables of spirits.

They are all nature’s poems.

Hauntingly beautiful. Riveting. Written without a single word.

Because nature speaks its very own language that only the soul, not the mind, can understand.

Pain is ripping her apart. But it reminds her that she’s alive. And this, in itself, is a miracle.

~~

She doesn’t know who she is anymore.

Some people call her a survivor. But it doesn’t feel like the right word. So many things in her died. So much was lost.

The attack took a lot from her. Danny. Bobby. Sense of security. Identity. Direction.

Right and wrong, good and bad, righteous and vicious. These are all just words. Someone needs to come and teach her the meaning of them anew. Draw lines, mark out frontiers. Save her from herself.

The ground is soaked. Torrential rain turned the soil into soft mud, warm and easily slipping through her fingers. She falls on her knees, praying for the ground to consume her.

Fill every part of her. Silence the internal cacophony. To sink into oblivion.

Not many people knew about the panic attacks and recurring nightmares. They’re always the same.

She’s standing in the middle of a swamp. Danny and Bobby are drowning, their arms reaching out for her. She knows she can only save one of them. She runs out of time trying to figure out how to save both. As a result, they both die. Time stands still and yet everything is spinning, moving, racing. The reality is a riot of overbright colours.

Suddenly, a ring breaks the silence. A polyphonic intruder. She looks at the screen through hooded eyes and notices the caller’s name. It’s him. He’s petrified. Worried to death. Asks her to stay where she is.

Some time later, maybe 10 minutes, maybe an hour - who knows? - he emerges from the gathering of stocky oaks.

The moment he catches the sight of her, he starts running. She notices a lab coat underneath the jacket. He’s soaking wet.

Even though he is so close, he doesn’t slow down. Crashing into her, he scoops her in his arms. Catches her in the tightest of embraces.

Asks her if she’s fine. No. Not that question again. She’s tired of people fussing over her and gets angry.

Had it not been for the attack, would he even be here? The voice asks mockingly. It doesn’t matter to her. He’s there now.

Deep baritone is gentle and full of concern. It’s not like that. It’s not his intention to fuss. He’s simply worried. Because she is the most important thing to him in the whole world. Yes, he wasted so much time. That’s why he refuses to lose even one more second.

A dam breaks within her. Eliciting a quiet sob. She clutches his shirt, holds onto him for dear life. Moments later, she’s screaming at the top of her lungs. Singing her poignant birdsong.

How is she supposed to cope? Will things ever go back to normal? What is normal anyway?

In the confines of the infamous patient room she never felt more scared in her life. But here, out in the open, she feels so safe. As if she’s had a silent agreement with nature, which vouched to protect her at all costs.

And this time, nature had an ally. Because Ethan will protect her, even if it’s the last thing he does. Holding onto each other, they stand in the nothingness.

It keeps them grounded. Connected to their roots. Turning over new leaves. Bending before they break. Growing.

They get lost. Mother Nature has a reward for those who do. They have a chance to find themselves. Over and over again.

~~~

If you made it this far - thank you & you're awesome 🥰

Tag list: @genevievemd @gryffindordaughterofathena @terrm9@starrystarrytrouble @the-pale-goddess @jamespotterthefirst @lisha1valecha @writer-ish @maurine07 @drakewalkerfantasy@iemcpbchoices @liaromancewriter @lem-20 @lucy-268 @oldminniemcg @queencarb @qrkowna @mercury84choices @lsvdw-blog @utterlyinevitable @stygianflood @udishaman @romewritingshop @romereadingshop @alina-yol-ramsey @stateofgracious @xxsugarplumfluffsxx @binny1985 @tsrookie @fayeswiftie @archxxronrookie @tinkertailorsoldierspy @schnitzelbutterfingers @wingedhairstylemusicweasel @theinvisibledreamergirl @custaroonie @irisofpurple @chasingrobbie @ethandaddyramseyx @quixoticdreamer16 @coffeeheartaddict @takemyopenheart @aworldoffandoms @potionsprefect @choicesficwriterscreations @openheartfanfics

#open heart #Ethan Ramsey x mc #choices fic writers creations #fics of the week #mental health awareness

[xochitai]

So, I’ve been scrolling through people’s blogs for way too long, and I saw a bunch of posts talking about season 6—specifically the colony plotline and the issues with it—and it reminded me of what I thought was going to happen when the show was still airing.

I had a theory: what if it was Haggar all along?

Let me explain:

Just to get this out of the way, I came up with this either in the space between s6 and s7 when we were getting clips from s7 or after s7 aired. My memory of certain scenes are very fuzzy and I don’t remember the specific episodes where things I am going to be refencing happened so apologies in advance if I misplace things in the timeline or remember certain details incorrectly.

So this all began with the clip where Haggar remembers herself and she reverts back to her Altean appearance. We see her remove her hood and get a clear view of her full face, which looks very similar to Lotor’s. And this isn’t just the angle or a character being off-model one time, it’s just how she looks [besides, they wouldn’t be the first parent-child combo to share a face]. She also has white hair, roughly the same length, that is a bit choppy and gets fluffier on the bottom.

We know from the scene were Allura disguises herself as a Galra soldier that Alteans with the ability to shapeshift can change their height, build, and color. Would it be so difficult to believe that someone like Haggar, who is very gifted with quintessence, could modify things like their vocal cords as well? She knows how Lotor speaks well enough. And if it is beyond her abilities, she could use a voice modifier. 

He always wears the same thing and styles his hair the same way whenever we see him as an adult, which adds to how easy it would be for her to copy his appearance. Her markings would show, but she can cover those.

It would also explain how he got that big Galran ship to transport Alteans to the second colony and how he was working with Galra scientists so nonchalantly.

The Ship

Lotor doesn’t seem to have much of his own stuff. In his introductory episode, somebody says something along the lines of, ”he fights on the front lines with his men,” but we don’t see him with any troops. At most, it’s just him and his generals. He has those smaller personal ships in the beginning [which could technically count as a fleet] and later the sincline ships, but that’s about it. So where does he get this large Galran ship from, and how did he move it around without drawing attention?

The Scientists

[I’m not sure if they count more as doctors or medical assistants or lab assistants, but for simplicity’s sake, I'm calling them scientists]

We see people in uniforms similar to the one Ulaz wears in Shiro’s flashback. Lotor is incredibly secretive and paranoid, to the point where he killed Narti, the person he entrusted with Kova, in an instant when he figured out Haggar was spying on them through her. He didn’t tell Allura about the colony, even when they were both alone in Orionde. He has been trying to keep Haggar and/or Zarkon from finding out about this for thousands of years. So why would he work with multiple Galra scientists that work under Haggar and bring them to the very place he has been trying to hide?

For Haggar though? Obtaining a ship would be simple. She has Zarkon’s favor and it’s implied he gives her whatever she wants most of the time. As for the scientists, they work for her and with her abilities, she could easily keep them quiet.

And now, for the thing that kickstarted this whole colony plot in the first place: the harvested quintessence. Why would Lotor be harvesting it this way in the first place? From his time on Ven’tar’s planet, we know he found a better way to harvest that both increased yields and didn’t damage the planet. So why would he make the jump straight to harvesting from people, Alteans no less? Unless he was forced, it seems strange. But for Haggar, who is obsessed with quintessence, and who we later see has no problem manipulating and sacrificing other Alteans, it seems like something she would have no qualms about.

The generals might be a problem, but we don’t know how much they know. Besides those scientists, it seems like he goes there by himself or with sentries most of the time. [Perhaps he brought Narti once and when Haggar took over her mind, that is how she found out?]

Also the visual parallel of the Alteans all lined up in the pods and the clone Shiros all lined up in theirs.

Obviously, my theory turned out to be Incorrect and it definitely had some holes [though so did the show], but I thought it would be fun to share and finally let it see the light of day :-)

#there are probably still some errors in here #but i have proofread three times #so i'm just gonna say they are intentional #vld #vld lotor #vld haggar #vld season 6

[alienahellsparkle]

❦ List fandoms of my heart: №3 (the last).

✯ Kuroshitsuji (Dark Butler)

This anime is my guide to the world of anime, my first of all, and the first that I liked. In addition, I have been watching it since I was 13 (omg, how old I am..).

I can say, from it I learned what anime is. It is one of my favorites and one of those that I can revisit (P.S .: And I'm still waiting for the new season or new full-length films, although no one said anything or promised anything about it).

The advantages of this anime are - interesting plots, 19th century setting mixed with the supernatural, soundtracks and a huge number of different characters for every taste. As I can tell, everyone will find their ideal 2D kun or chan here.

I could single out a lot of cool characters, but I'm afraid they could be spoilers too, so I'll just mention a few of my personal favorites.

Sebastian is a demon butler and another protagonist besides Ciel. A jack of all trades, a cool killer and one of the most real handsome men who stole many hearts from the female audience, who is in many similar tops and sometimes even has leading positions. I can say that he was my very first anime - love.

Prince Soma is an Indian prince. I don't know how many fans he has, but I think not as many as Sebastian and Ciel. Actually, Soma is the one who attracted me much more and my love for Sebastian did not last forever. This is because Soma, in addition to being beautiful and Indian (which was important to me as a lover of Bollywood films and music, and also interested in Indian culture), has a sweet and good personality. Three combos!

Madame Red is a bright woman with a difficult fate. I guess there isn't much more to say here (spoilers, spoilers, damn it).

Pluto is a devilish dog. Cutie, charming, with one cool ability and mine another anime-love (those who know this character and his unusual ability - yes - yes, I know it's weird to fall in love with characters like him).

As I said, the soundtracks are wonderful - some of the tunes have some classic notes in them, and also, the opening can be recognized from a thousand and it is easy to remember which anime it belongs to.

Also, there are elements of detective and crime, which also adds its own special shades and makes this anime even more interesting and aesthetically pleasing.

I look forward to continuing with it and begin to show interest in anime of a similar genre and setting in one (I found something similar, for example, as "House of Shadows").

✯ Dame x Prince 

Another anime that became my find and I can watch it many times. I liked it so much that after I found it (in 2018 it was a spring novelty), I watched almost all the episodes in one gulp and only later realized that it ends too quickly, because I could not stop in time.

This anime contains everything that I love about the reverse - harems - beautiful drawing, bright colors, romance, elements of comedy and fantasy, attractive male characters and not a stupid main character who can be respected.

We can say that Ani is one of the few normal owners of a harem, but she can be considered a diamond among them. She is encouraged by her courage and the fact that she is not embarrassed when guys compliment her or try to flirt (I could say more about her, but these will be spoilers).

Despite the fact that here the male characters are clichéd, for example - a kind cutie, handsome womanizer, narcissistic rude and so on, they look cool and interesting to watch, it's a pity that we will never know which of them Ani chose in the end.

In addition, there is one more plus in the form of a good plot, after which it helps some characters to reveal themselves.

Even if many people do not always take girly harem animes well and consider them worthless and empty, just to please teenage girls with cute romance in a colorful wrapper, this anime genre also deserves a place to be. Who knows, maybe soon the reverse - harems will evolve even more, at least there are already some anime-worthy options. Everything has its fans..

In general, this is a good and positive anime that can bring more colors to life. And I still hope for season 2.. 

✯ Nanbaka

When you watch a video on the topic: "Guess the gender of anime characters", you will not think that in this way you will be able to discover a new anime. That's how I found out about Nanbaka, after which I watched the first season in a couple of days.

I associate this anime with the beginning of July 2018 and the dairy drinks Twix, Milky Way and Snickers, which at that time I was finally able to taste.

Nanbaka has several advantages - a cool variety of characters, an element of comedy, and an equally vibrant color scheme. Also, I noticed that all characters have their own special difference - they all have nails painted in a different color and have small fangs.

Despite the fact that there is no romance here and the plot is built around a prison theme, Nanbaka is quite interesting to watch, and in some episodes there are elements of drama and seriousness. However, if the first season is more comical situations, then the second season is a little more serious, at least there are more problems that the heroes solve.

Of the characters, there are not only bisonens and heroes with simple qualities including kindness, cuteness, foolishness, signs of a womanizer, hot temper and severity, but there are also unexpected specimens, such as several LGBTQ characters and even antagonists.

Unfortunately, Nanbaka is not a very popular fandom and most likely there will never be a third season... But this is another solid anime that can be endlessly watched and is one of those that drags on from the first episodes.

✯ Romance Club

This visual novel often came across to me in YouTube recommendations, in the form of walkthroughs and analysis of Easter eggs from it.

At first, I was not very interested in this, and from the video, my first impression was that this is just an incomprehensible game with characters similar to cardboard figures, but for some reason it became very popular and discussed on social networks.

After some time, I still began to watch the walkthroughs and more or less began to understand what the whole highlight of the game is, and after that, I began to play myself, though at the beginning, then, I had only a plan to while away the rest of summer time until autumn, but I didn’t notice how I began to be drawn into the RC and it became not just a game for one time, it became a habit that is difficult to get rid of.

Now, it's not just a bunch of pretty cardboard character figurines and a joke that RC is a mix of films like "50 Shades of Gray" and "Twilight", made for teenage girls.

Romance Club is - characters for every taste, from whites and Europeans, to Hispanics and Asians, both boys and girls. LGBTQ relationships have not been forgotten here either.

Various stories with any setting - vampires + werewolves, pirates, aliens, 19th-18th century, royal setting, movie stars and fame, Scandinavian mythology, ancient Greek mythology, sea and beach setting, detectives and crime, ancient Japan (geisha and samurai) , angels and demons, everyday life and much more, but the creators continue to delight us with new stories to this day, and I think we still have a lot to see.

Beautiful graphics and drawing of characters, cool design of clothes, and also, here you can learn how to beautifully compose texts and sentences (let's say this can be useful for the writing sphere), since some stories contain wonderful descriptions of some scenes and comparisons of concepts (example. "Stars as luminous points," and the like).

But besides romance, other important topics can be revealed here, such as the concept of friendship, a hard life due to many problems, courage and self-confidence, and sometimes even 18+ topics can be touched upon. In addition, some stories have instructive facts, for example, something about the history of Turkey during the Ottoman Empire. 

Romance Club is scientifically enlightening!

Despite the fact that I refused to play games, since they take a lot of time, during which you can do a bunch of other useful things, RC is the only game (besides the Sims) on which I do not regret wasting my time and it is always interesting to watch new stories and how the old ones will end.

(P.S.: 

here is part 1 https://lenahellsparkle.tumblr.com/post/650656683336548352/list-fandoms-of-my-heart-1

part 2 https://lenahellsparkle.tumblr.com/post/655103141583470593/list-fandoms-of-my-heart-2)

#fandom #multifandoms #my fandoms #favorite fandoms #cartoon fandom #movie fandoms #game fandoms #anime fandoms #kuroshitsuji #dark butler #dame x prince #nanbaka #romance club #visual novel #anime harems #anime reverse harems #anime #kuroshitsuji fandom #dame x prince fandom #nanbaka fandom #romance club fandom #detective animes #supernatural animes #anime demons #anime prisoners #girlish animes #romantic games #romantic animes #reverse harems #part 3

[bluesky-thewebcomic]

Final thoughts from Elvenwhovian

So here we are at the end. The last panel. There were a lot of times that I thought I wouldn’t make it to this point. It’s been an incredible and long journey, and finishing a project like this is satisfying beyond words. I know that many of you were not here from the start, so I just wanted to share the story of how this 930 panel monster of a project came to be and thank a few people who helped along the way.

Really it all started in March of 2014. My roommate had taken a trip to New Zealand to visit family and I was having a pity party at home alone (It’s always been a dream of mine to go to New Zealand). I was window shopping online on Thinkgeek (RIP Thinkgeek) and I was seeing all this merch for a game called Portal. This led me to Steam, which led to finishing the first Portal in about a day, then Portal2 in about 2 weeks. 

Of course this led me to begin looking up fan art which led me to discover the fanfiction “Blue Sky”. I read the whole thing in about 4 days. I was so engrossed in the story, I ate, slept, went to work, and read Blue Sky and nothing else. I vividly remember sitting at my kitchen table, ipad in hand, as I read the last lines of the story. I sat back, let out a long breath and said, “Wow. That was one of the best stories I’ve ever read.” 

The fan art came next. Being relatively new to tumblr, I was used to getting 3-6 notes on a post. Suddenly, people were coming out of the woodwork liking and reblogging. My mind was blown and it made me want to make more fan art. Then I met @starry-nightengale who became one of my best friends on this site. We fangirled over “Blue Sky” and Portal over the next year which led to us co-writing “The Trial of the Bow” trilogy, a medieval/fairytale retelling of Portal, Portal 2, Blue Sky, and Portal Stories: Mel. 

It was on Labor day weekend of 2015 when my internet went down inexplicably. My roommate who had the internet in her name was out of town yet again and I conceded that I would have to wait until she got back to get the issue resolved. The Trial of the Bow Trilogy was finished and I had just co-written with @the-royal-sketchbook a Half-life Medival/fairytale fanfic “The Legend of the Freeman.” However, my passion for Half-life was not as strong as it was for Blue Sky and I longed to do something else involving Wheatley, Chell, and the citizens of Eaden. 

Most of the people that I encouraged to read Blue Sky did not have the time to invest into a novel length book. I longed to create something more accessible. A comic book/graphic novel of the story had been in the back of my mind for a long time, but when the desire rose up in me, the thought of “but you would have to do backgrounds and you suck at backgrounds” reared its ugly head. 

But on that Labor day weekend, a thought occurred to me. “What if I did it as a comic? Very loose and simple. Something that I could do for fun without any heavy commitment.” So that weekend, I did a quick pencil drawing of the scene when Wheatley and Chell argue from Chapter 5. I threw some color on it and put it on tumblr and it got a great response. Then I did the scene when Chell transfers Wheatley into the hardlight avatar from Chapter 3. Another great response. It was simple and loose but people seemed to like it. I asked Starry what she thought about doing the whole story in such a way. If memory serves, she was for it but warned me not to get too far ahead of myself. If I did this, it would be a huge project and would take a lot of planning and forethought. BTW, good advice Starry ;)

After completing all of Chapter 1, I made the announcement, created the page, and the Blue Sky Web comic was born.

One of the things that helps me to recharge each week is drawing/working on art on Sunday afternoons. In the past, I had struggled to find things to work on, but no more. Sunday was now Blue Sky Comic day. I would post 2 panels and create 4 more. If I had extra time on holidays or days off I would get extra done. This system allowed me to consistently add to the project without feeling rushed or overwhelmed. I was able to get ahead so that I could take breaks for holidays, trips, computer problems, and eventually planning my wedding and getting married. The Blue Sky Web Comic became a constant in my life. Whenever I needed to decompress and just draw or color in panels, it was there. 

In late summer of 2019, my Father was diagnosed with cancer. If any of you have walked through cancer with someone, you know how difficult and painful it can be. My husband and I took a trip to see my parents about once a month for the next 8 months. The drive was fairly long and was the perfect opportunity to work on what I called “pencil work” for the comic (sketching out the layout of each panel, a process that took the most concentration and time). Working on the comic helped to keep my mind off of things. Each time we visited my Dad his condition declined and being able to focus on something like the “pencil work” helped to make the trips better.

In spring of 2020, right before the COVID-19 lockdown, my Father passed away. It was right before that final trip that I finished the “Pencil work”. By then I had also made a lot of headway on the comic itself, with only a few chapters left to ink and color. I remember reading stories and blogs about how people made it through difficult times by focusing on a hobby, tv show, book, or music; not living in denial of the bad things, but just having something to help them take a break from it all. That was what the Blue Sky Comic was for me in those final days and I will always cherish how it was one of the things that helped me to make it through that difficult period in my life.

With the COVID-19 lockdown, I had some extra time to work on the comic and by late spring of 2020, I finished the last panel. It still kind of blows my mind. From 2015 to 2020 was how long it took to complete.

____________

To the 2000+ followers and those who replied, liked, reblogged, and sent messages, your words helped me to keep going when I wondered if it was worth it. Your kind thoughts helped me to know that this story is still enjoyed by people and Portal fans alike.

To @starry-nightengale, thank you for your advice at the beginning and your support and friendship along the way. Here’s to many more ^w^

And to @wafflebloggies, thank you for writing Blue Sky. It may seem overdramatic, but when I found this fic back in 2014, I was in a dark place and your story helped me hold onto the light. Even years later when faced with new trials, it helped me to focus on what was ahead. I truly believe that this story resonates with so many people because it taps into the most simple and profound truth: the most powerful love is selfless. And selfless love can conquer any difficulty. Also your support of the comic over the years made me smile with delight. I’m so glad you liked it :)

So that’s the story. I plan to do more audiobooks of the rest of the Trial of the Bow trilogy, but after that I’m going to be taking a nice long break from Blue Sky and Portal.  I have a personal passion project that I am in the initial stages on. It's another web comic that I actually couldn’t have even considered doing if not for the experience I gained over the past 5 years. I’ll have updates on my personal tumblr for that project and the audiobooks, but for this page, The Blue Sky Web comic, this will be one of my final posts (aside from responding to any messages from you guys). Thank you all again for following. What an incredible journey this has been! This fandom is so amazing and I love you all. Take care and God bless. - Elvy

#blue sky portal #thanks again #it's been a wild ride #:'3

[livlepretre]

The thing about your character interpretation of Elena is that you really draw from her initial core traits and character arcs. I think some people might disagree with you about interpretation because they are remembering Elena from the later seasons. It is like if you wore a slightly different colored shirt everyday for a few months. You could start out with a blue shirt and end with a yellow one, but everyone would be under the impression you have been wearing the same colored shirt the whole time. Season 5 is the start of this skewed view of Elena, I believe. I think this has a lot to do with the fact that she was A.) a vampire and B.) less involved with the main conflict of the season. Sure, the plot of season 5 had a lot to do with doppelganger destiny and whatnot, but think about how that plot relates to Elena throughout the season. What was she doing to stop Augustine Society? If it were season two or three Elena, she would have probably used her charm and familial connections to the society to infiltrate them and find a way to shut them down. But season 5 Elena is barely involved in anything. In fact, her screen time decreases dramatically this season. I just scrubbed through an episode to fact check what Elena was doing, and she was in like 5 scenes. However, Nina Dobrev herself appeared in way more scenes as Katherine. I think having Nina Dobrev playing 2 main characters in one season was an extremely difficult bad idea. Having two doppelgangers as main characters would be awesome in a written story (like in but still, like dust, i’ll rise by twocankeepasecret), but with a live action format where both characters have to be played by one actress, it just isn’t feasible. The vampire aspect also made all scenes Elena was in kind of boring. She didn’t really have to come up with anything interesting because she could now physically fight with her enemies. The episode where Qetsiyah traps her and Stefan in a lake house could have been interesting, but the problem was solved by them stabbing her and then superspeeding out of the building. Jesse attacks Damon two episodes later and Elena solves the problem by just superspeeding up to them and staking him in the back. It takes all the fun out of how Elena goes about doing things. Season six marks the first season without any doppelganger relevance. Elena is compelled to lose all good memories of Damon, and that could have been interesting. Since Elena was specifically compelled to hate Damon in a way that wouldn’t make her miss him, we could have seen how Elena deals with him after he comes back. This is an Elena who believes she didn’t forgive Damon for killing her brother. That could have been an interesting arc to see, but no. Elena falls in love with him like 4 episodes later, so did it even really matter? The point is, I think people have a hard time seeing Elena as she used to be because the audience really stopped getting to see those traits of hers in the later seasons. Her prominence in the narrative, and the obstacles that she had to overcome sort of disappear until the Elena that you’re looking at doesn’t resemble the one you started with. That is why you're an absolute gem to this fandom. Your stories all feature a post season 3 Elena who retains her character traits. Your gift of creating complex emotional conflicts proves that in a show like TVD, you don’t have to keep going bigger and badder. Sometimes the best way to expand the plot is to make the conflict more personal and utilize the characters and relationships established throughout the previous seasons. Elena’s arc throughout FE, especially the isolation arc, is a perfect example of this. Moments like Elena trying to will Klaus to come back, having her miscarriage, and almost accidently drowning are all heartwrenching, and it makes the scenes like her deciding to make the most of her life/ falling for Rebekah (her once tormentor) so much more rewarding. This was entirely too long, but just know, you are seriously my fav fanfic author, and your takes and analysis are always welcome here.

I'm actually a bit overwhelmed by this, thank you so much for sending this in. I agree with you so completely that a lot of the issue seems to be that Elena's characterization does change radically-- I don't really recognize her in seasons 5 & 6-- which is why I largely ignore them when writing for her character. (And that's what fanfic is for-- taking the pearls and chucking out the clots of dirt.) Seasons 1-3 Elena is an entirely different character, the true version of the character, in my opinion-- since she was at this point still the main character on the show, and a force of agency and plot development. You've also articulated something which drives me wild about the later seasons once she becomes a vampire-- super speed plus super strength basically negate the need for Elena to find interesting and twisty ways to solve her problems-- she no longer has to scheme and seduce and take insane risks, because she has supernatural powers. She no longer needs to make back room secret deals with giants who could crush her, or stab herself or slit her own throat in wild gambles, or even just to charm people-- and that takes away a key element of her character. Which is such a shame, because we see Katherine displaying these same traits as a vampire, and we can see that Katherine is the natural culmination of where Elena is heading, which is so dark and so fascinating in those early seasons. I agree completely with your analysis of what went wrong with the later seasons, and why the earlier seasons really worked for Elena as a character, and why fandom has such a bad taste in its mouth about where Elena ended up do to some truly bizarre and unfortunate storytelling decisions.

And-- gosh-- thank you x a million for your comments on FE. I am so appreciative and cannot wait to share the rest of the story with you!!

#asks #the-snow-star #fairytale ending

[baezdylan]

LITTLE WOMEN FANFICTION

CHAPTER 2, PART 1: INVISIBLE STRING

Horizons and Sunsets

 

"Time, curious time, gave me no compasses, gave me no signs"

- invisible string, Taylor Swift

Concord, Massachusetts, 1868

 

Rays of sunshine playing on her skin. Soft grass under her fingers. Little specks of dirt scattered across her face. Leaves tangled up in her hair. It's not a common happening to be able to see yourself in such a way. A way that makes it seem like you are not you, but somebody else wearing somebody else's clothes, guarding somebody else's heart, owning somebody else's thoughts. Like you are only an observer, a background noise in your own life. These descriptions are usually used in unpleasant connotations, usually as metaphors, usually as another way of saying you feel transparent, forgotten and small. But in Jo's case, the phenomenon is not even a tiny bit metaphorical. Maybe it's the impact of the books. Maybe it's her imagination. Maybe it's just her. Whatever it is, Jo has always been able to see her life as a theatre piece, herself an audience member, her past self, no matter how far back she might travel to reach a certain memory, a performer.  And Jo craves those moments of remembrance. She craves the feeling of transparency. She craves to exist less.

 

Everything she remembers, she remembers in flashes. Her memories do not understand concepts such as "chronology" or "order". Her brain resembles an unsolved puzzle. Every piece of information she has makes sense. But when to be put together with another aspect of her being, it does not fit. Nothing about her ever seems to fit. And now, she doesn't fit within herself.

 

No, Jo March is not a puzzle. Puzzle, no matter how difficult and complex, can be put together.

 

She's a living breathing contradiction.

What else to describe the utter ridiculousness of her mind? She is not happy and she is not sad. One second she is completely content with her life, the other, she is not. She wants to receive love, love and love, but she is afraid to offer it.

 

When Josephine March loves someone, she does not tell them. She does show, but never tells. She never uses the famous simple phrase. Never not once.

 

Her best friend burns for the people he loves. Jo burns for them in secret.

 

And here, as she is seeing herself splattered in sunlight, Jo March is preoccupied with three actions of extraordinary importance.

 

One is chasing ghosts.

Other is rearranging thoughts,

Final is accepting sunsets.

 

***

 

Paris, France, 1868

Theodore (yes, he is "Theodore" now) is not exactly sure where he is or how did he get there. His vision is blurry and his body feels heavier than usual. What is fascinating about his situation is the fact that consuming certain "substances", (and substances being of alcoholic nature), were supposed to prevail him from feeling like this. From feeling the way he's been feeling his entire life. Like everything around him was frozen and he was the only one moving. He was just too fast, too warm, too different. Enormous in emotion, reckless in thought. All of this often led to conclusions too horrific to comprehend, so he tried to avoid thinking.

The thought of having too many emotions might be terrifying. But the thought of having too much love for everything and everyone but himself was rather paralyzing. It was ridiculous to expect anybody to feel with as much passion as he did. It was ridiculous to demand such a thing from people. Why would anyone put all of their energy into someone else when there were so many things to be done in the world? But those other things rarely sparked an interest in him. Adventures, boarding schools, trips and experiences seemed irrelevant and hollow unless they were intended to be shared. It's funny how he always craved the one thing he never had. And when he finally got a glance of the love he so desperately wanted, he lost it because of his stupid absurd annoying emotions.

When Theodore Laurence loves someone he does not tell them. He screams it until his lungs are on fire.

 

His best friend loves with her whole entire heart. He loves with his whole entire being.

 

And now, vision blurry and body heavy, Theodore Laurence finds himself preoccupied with three actions of extraordinary importance.

 

One is chasing ghosts.

Other is rearranging thoughts,

Final is accepting sunsets.

 

***

Concord, Massachusetts, 1862

 

Step one: chasing ghosts

Sand beneath her bare feet. Water. Silent whispers of the sea. Birds. Colors. Nothing. Everything. Oh, to be crafted in such a way to believe you shall always be sixteen and silly and reckless and real. That is how Jo feels right now. Real. Right here, observing, enjoying, doing nothing but existing. And the sea! So mystical and wide, appearing endless in its presence, it looks like something in possession of a dream rather than this time and place. And the best part of this? Her family. They all resemble a painting in their natural messiness. Amy with her hair half wet, positioned in a way she believes to be ladylike, smiling at the horizon, sketchbook in hand. Meg, holding her hat so that it doesn't leave her in its desperate wish to follow the wind, shoes untied, eyes glistening from laughter she experienced seconds before. Beth, oh sweet Beth, kneeling by the water, touching the shining surface, mouth moving as though she is singing to the sea itself. Teddy is by her side, like he always is, sitting with his eyes closed, head held high up to the sky. He would probably refer to his current position as a way to "suck out all the marrow out of life", which always sounded a bit inappropriate coming from his mouth, but Jo loved the symbolism of the phrase, so she decided to put her friend's foolishness to the side.

 

"Isn't it simply ethereal, dearest Teddy?"

 

"Yes, I did indeed think my face had a particular glow to it this morning, your kind remark is very well appreciated, Miss March" came a teasing response shortly followed by a light smack to the arm (because Jo, being an experienced bookworm, always had a book weapon down her sleeve).

 

"Oh Teddy, you're such a boy sometimes. I find it quite disappointing really." said Jo being perfectly aware of the effect the comment might cause. Teddy shot her a look of a supposedly hurt individual, put a hand over his heart and exhaled loudly, as though he was a character in a Shakespearean tragedy. Jo rolled her eyes at the glamorous gesture, but pretty quickly, her features were changed with a thoughtful expression. She turned her head to Teddy timelines after, only to be greeted with a no longer playful, but a reassuring smile. He knew her too well.

 

"You know, it doesn't make it any less beautiful. The fact that it's all going to end one day, I mean. Quite the opposite actually."

 

She does not answer that. She gets up from the ground and extends her hand to him.

 

"If it's going to end, we might as well suck all of the existing marrow out of it."

 

"Oh, what a wonderful choice of words, dearest Jo!" he exclaims theatrically while gladly accepting her hand

 

"Oh, what a wonderful life, dearest Teddy."

 

And with that, they run to the sea, their lungs almost too full, smiles almost too big. Spirits almost too free.

 

 

Childhood is a thing of dreams.

 

 

Concord, Massachusetts, 1863

 

Step two: rearranging thoughts

 

Trousers under skirts. It's scandalous. Scandalous and inappropriate. At least that's what society will label it as. And society loves labels. But Laurie finds a solace of sorts in his friend's choice of clothes. He isn't sure how to explain it (he is not as good with words as Jo is), but it's comforting to see someone be so unapologetically themselves, whoever that person might be. He tells her this one day because he's Laurie and he isn't familiar with the concept of "silencing your emotions".

 

"Teddy, don't flatter, I told you I do not enjoy nor support such doings. You might as well go practice your gentlemanly manners on Amy, I'm sure she will accept your words of so called admiration with much more enthusiasm than yours truly." says Jo, her voice a tiny bit too loud, her thoughts meeting the outside world in grave speed. Laurie often finds himself wondering how one speaks with so much passion and rush, it's like Jo's sentences are running instead of flowing. She shares her mind without looking at him, her hands busy with rearranging the dining table previously covered with Amy's unfinished drawings and Beth's beloved dolls.

 

"I meant what I said, Jo. But since you believe I'm incapable of offering sincerity, I shall escort myself out."

 

He gets up from the place he was sitting at and rushes out of the March house, leaving his waistcoat behind him. Jo knows better than to follow him right away. She will bring him the forgotten object later, once he's ready to start unravelling burdens.

 

 

***

 

Night.

 

Light.

 

 

These two nouns aren't supposed to get along very well, yet here we are. Jo finds herself awake in the middle of the night, which circumstance she is no stranger to, but this time it is not her restless mind that steals her from the arms of dreamland. It's light. Jo gets up, careful not to make a noise, and looks out the window to further investigate the strange occurring. And the sight her eyes are met with is a sight so undoubtedly Teddy-like that she isn't sure if she will be able to forgive herself for not coming up with such a conclusion sooner. The house of her neighbour, who happens to be her dearest friend, is shining with what she presumes is light of about two dozen candles. The scene would've been inspiring, if not captivating, especially for a person of her making, but Jo knows Teddy and this cannot mean anything pleasant. Therefore, she decides to pay her fellow pirate a visit, armed with a forgotten piece of clothing as a faithful enough excuse.

 

Proud of herself for avoiding all the obstacles successfully (and the obstacles being sleeping family members who have yet to be introduced to the pleasures such as "sleepless nights" or "windows"), Jo runs to the construction once known as a house, now as a gothic castle and knocks. Her efforts are answered with a voice of not a person, but a peculiarly human like ghost.

 

"Who is it?"

 

"Do you really think I will dare share information of an importance so big, oh so grand, without seeing your face, kind sir?" says not Jo, but a righteous, noble knight, his devotion as admirable as amusing.

 

Laurie opens the door only to be met with a grinning Jo.

 

"I believe you have forgotten this, my friend."

exclaims an unlike lady, kneels down and offers him his waistcoat in a way so grandiose, some might think she actually was a knight in shining armor, sharing sunlight, providing hope.

 

"Don't be a goose Jo" came a gentlemanly response followed by an annoyed sound and indifferent expression. Laurie turns around, but leaves the door wide open. Jo, understanding the message quite well, follows him inside to a candle lit room. Laurie approaches the piano and sits down as though he is about to start playing the instrument, but he doesn't confirm the logical assumption. Instead, he closes his eyes and remains like that for what feels like eternity, looking like a human statue. It would've been comical if it were anybody else, but Jo was familiar with Teddy's passion for extravagance. His behaviour does not spark laughter, but concern.

 

"Teddy, I think you should start explaining whatever it is you need to explain. Keeping it in won't do anybody any good despite you believing it will. I promise, you won't be a burden."

 

Laurie shifts in his position and exhales loudly, his eyes still closed. When he starts to speak, his voice is not his. It's distant and decorated with occasional trembles which he is desperately trying to avoid.

"When I told you today how I find solace in the way you carry yourself and how you wear trousers and don't care about what people think of you, I wasn't trying to mess around or anything. Sometimes... Sometimes I feel like I am not me... Like I'm not a good match for myself and I..." he opens his eyes at that, not sure if he wants to receive a response to any of the things he has just said.

 

"I am deeply sorry Jo, this doesn't make any sense, you can go, I don't know what came of me."

 

"Oh Teddy, but it does make sense! It makes so, so much sense." Jo doesn't say that like she wants to comfort him. She really seems to mean it. Their gazes meet at the exact same time, their eyes glossy (which observation they will both dismiss in immense respect to one another), their faces now beautified with soft smiles.

 

"You do realize you are wearing a night gown right?"

 

"I am not the one randomly lighting up candles, impersonating ghosts now, am I?"

"It's called dramatic effect, Jo! Dramatic effect! And keep the waistcoat, I never really liked it anyways."

***

After that day, Jo and Laurie's closets were left grieving for lost members of their separate societies. Blouses, neckties and waistcoats were introduced to the idea of travel and adventure. And even though the closets were left in grief, their owners were more than satisfied with the not so sudden change.

#turns out this chapter is too long😅 #posting it in two parts #idk if anybody will like this one #it's ment to show how jo/laurie ultimately wouldn't work together #they only work in one timeline #and that timeline is childhood #little women 2019 #little women #my writing #fanfiction #jo march #jo x laurie #laurie laurence #amy march #beth march #amy × laurie #meg march #the childhood scenes are actually memories #so they're told through adult perspective #there will be a chapter exploring jo and laurie's childhood days in a lighthearted manner #taylor swift #evermore #folklore

[ayuuria]

Yashahime Translation: Animedia January 2021 Issue

Please do not repost this translation without my consent! This includes screenshots of any type and amount. If you wish to share this translation, simply link to this post.

For more information regarding the use of my translations, click here.

I do apologize if some of the translations feel awkward. This one was slightly technical so I had to do some research on the side.

Animedia Education Lecture

You think you know but you surprisingly don’t

Working in Anime

— ­Editing Edition –

A corner where we delve into the work of anime production. This time, we ask Nii Kazuhiro of (share) IMAGICA Lab., who handles the editing for “Hanyō no Yashahime”, about editing!

The job of “editing” is vital not just in anime but also in live movies and tv dramas. People who like films may be able to vaguely imagine the burden of having the big role of organizing the scenes. However, exactly what sort of work do they do in anime production? This time, Mr. Nii Kazuhiro of (share) IMAGICA Lab., who oversees the editing of the action packed “Hanyō no Yashahime”, makes an appearance! We had him discuss editing and the special work process unique to “Hanyō no Yashahime”.

Tell us Nii-san! Let’s learn about “Editing”

Q: What kind of job is “Editing”?

It is a job that manages the flow of the whole film by connecting scenes or shots together. For example, how well a signature move in battle or sports is executed is dependent upon the tempo adjustment “editing”. Other things like scenes where shots are divided effectively by the placement of songs or music in an important work, will always have an editor’s hand (adjustment) involved. Even if the animation is created to flow exactly like the storyboard, a lot of times the timing of those scenes is fine-tuned with editing. Timing is just as important as properly moving images after all.

Q. During what phase of the anime production do you work?

Typically in anime, shots are edited at a phase where the color and sound have not yet been added and is completed as each phase in the production moves forward. Editing takes place before the audio work. Basically, it occurs twice: before voice recording and dubbing (translator’s note: Dubbing here does not mean voice over! Dubbing is the phase where they mix the voicing, sound effects, and music together to match the images). There are many works where color is added after dubbing has concluded, but in “Hanyō no Yashahime”, in order to allow for dubbing with the color, colored images are used as materials when editing. Since the images are colored, we can confirm the fine details with the director and production supervisor and then make adjustments.

Q. How does one become an “Editor”?

I entered a vocational school focused on film making and learned not just about editing but film making as a whole such as filming and lighting. There wasn’t any convenient editing software at the time, so I joined my current company that does film production thinking “Editing is something that can’t be self-taught so I want to learn on the job”. If you want to pursue editing, then you should watch as many different types of films as you can. You can’t notice things in production like direction and the camera angle of a shot if you don’t have interest in it, so I think it’s best to study it for the sake of knowledge.

Q. What abilities are needed for “Editing”?

Communication skills are an absolute must. Especially in animation which has a lot of detailed work itineraries and staff members creating it. To ensure that there are no mistakes, you must ask the director or production supervisor on anything you are unsure of. Of course, you can’t keep asking questions on every single shot so there are times where you will need to understand past productions and make decisions yourself. However, being able to muster up the courage and ask when necessary is important. You need communication skills for that purpose.

The “Hanyō no Yashahime” Production Site Packed with Fixations

— Please tell us the details on how you came to oversee the editing in “Hanyō no Yashahime”.

I had the opportunity to work with Director Satō (Teruo) on “Aikatsu Stars!” and he reached out to me. Since the story was connected to “Inuyasha”, which was broadcasted when I was a child, I felt a lot of pressure at first. While I was nervous when I heard the that main staff hadn’t changed much from “Inuyasha”, I felt “That’s all the more reason I have to work hard”.

— In regard to the editing work, did Director Satō make any demands?

I touched on this earlier in my response to “what phase we work” where I discussed how the director requested “Please have the images close to completion before the dubbing, where the music and voicing will be decided finalized, takes place. I would like to have editing done just before the dubbing as well.” This is what makes this so different from other works.

For example, in action scenes when the image is unfinished, it’s hard to understand the small movements or context. Hence, it’s difficult to take a “Maybe make the tempo like this” sort of editing approach. In typical animes, there are a lot of times where the final images solidify after the sound is completed. When that happens, there’s not much room to make edits for the most part.

However, in “Hanyō no Yashahime”, the images are mostly done before the dubbing so we can make adjustments with the director while matching the images with the voice actor’s lines. I thought it was a good idea. This is a trait unique to this work.

— Was there an aspect that you yourself focused on when editing this work?

While it’s a work with a lot of serious developments, what I focus on during those scenes is the “the interval between emotions”. In live film works, for thinking scenes, the actor’s “thinking act” is included so there’s an interval. However, in anime, the movement simply stops and there are no lines, so a lot of times you can’t measure the interval. Nevertheless, those serious scenes are important in “Hanyō no Yashahime” so I think it’s important to have “intervals” which is what I’m careful about. On the other hand, there are comical scenes, so I’m careful not to destroy the tempo. In anime, the tempo can change if it’s off by 6 frames*

*1 frame = 24 frames per second

The Feeling of Fun in Doing “Editing” Work

— In anime editing, does the work’s genre make a difference?

It does. Lately in action and sport (animes), materials included are not just from the storyboard but also from 3D CG as well, so we’re careful to make sure the connection between that and normal image (2D) scenes don’t feel out of place. When I first started, I couldn’t get the hang of it and was at a loss. The 3D CG portion is done by a different production team instead of the animation (drawing) team, so during my edits I couldn’t visualize the complete final form and fumbled as I worked.

In terms of idol anime, there’s “Aikatsu Stars!” that I worked with Director Satō on, but I was still a novice then… In work that’s geared towards children, I focused on making the tempo of the conversation scenes as steady as possible. If the tempo is too fast, it will end with everything being breezed through and a child will become unable to follow. I remember being careful of that.

— Are there times where you have to edit multiple episodes at the same time?

I mainly only work on one episode at a time. It’s just that periodically I have to confirm and make adjustments on a line-by-line basis in another episode at the same time.

— What part of “Editing” do you feel makes the jobs worthwhile?

In anime, images and CG shots that have been completed at each phase of the process are gathered individually as materials for editing. Updating those materials into one new episode and getting to see the finished product first is what “Editing” is. I think this is what makes the job of “Editing” fun the most. I get a sense of responsibility that I’m managing not only the shots but the entire work as a whole. Also, because I’ve seen the production process, I feel happy and simply moved like “That’s amazing” when all the phases are completed and the whole anime is finished. This is when I feel worthwhile as an editor. Also, I don’t think there’s much opportunity to take part in the production of the character movement and camera work in live filming, so I think this is what makes editing anime fun.

— After going through all the work, how do you feel when you watch the broadcasting of the finished version?

I end up watching it from different angles but when I watch it as a regular viewer, I become happy nonetheless. Of course, there are times where I personally think “I should’ve done this” at the little things. Now with social media, I know the viewers’ reactions in real time, so when there was a huge response to episode 1 with Inuyasha and the others, that put pressure on me going forward (laughs).

The Charm of “Hanyō no Yashahime” That You Personally Enjoy

— Of all the episodes that have been broadcasted thus far, which episode left the biggest impression on you?

Episode 3 where the three heroines (Towa, Setsuna, and Moroha) came together. I got to watch the (voice) recording for that episode and the battle scene was really cool. Also, I was able to properly draw the first conversation between the three so that left the biggest impression on me in that sense.

Then there’s episode 7. It’s the episode where you return to the scene of the three of them that at the very beginning of episode 1. The composition of back tracking up to episode 1 left an impression on me, so even as I was editing episode 7, I admired how it felt like the mystery was being revealed or rather feeling like “I see. This is where it connects”.

— By the way, who is your favorite character personally?

Moroha. She’s fundamentally an energetic character, her skills in action scenes are cool, and the way she seems to mimic the movements of her father, Inuyasha, is entertaining as well. While she behaves in a manner that makes you wonder if she had a tragic past, she’s a character whose emotions are easy to read so that’s why she’s my favorite.

— Including upcoming highlights, please give a message to our readers.

Going forward there will be more episodes regarding the three heroine’s past which I think is a highlight. As I was editing a future episode, I felt “We’re approaching the true nature of the story”. Please look forward to the cool action scenes and the episode where the three’s past will become clear.

#yashahime #hanyō no yashahime #yashahime: princess half-demon #translation

[mattzerella-sticks]

🌊What the Water Gave Him 🌊

Destiel-centric finale spec based on a post I made earlier, found here

Can be read on ao3 here

It was over. Chuck lost, Sam and Dean can live their lives how they want them. But their victory wasn't without losses. The biggest upset nearly taking Dean out of the game, happening so close to the final battle. Now he's on the other side, alive against all odds, but Sam knows he isn't happy. Not truly happy since the Empty stole his best friend.

But there's a chance they can save him. A slim chance. A risk that Dean's willing to take despite every logical nerve in Sam's body screaming at him to look for better options. That threading a needle this small is too dangerous. That they don't have to take on another big bad, not anymore. That they don't have to risk their lives anymore. Dean is far past the point of listening. Dead set on this mission, Sam can only watch.

And pray his brother proves him wrong.

           He stands along the water’s edge, gentle waves lapping the rocky shore. Barely licking at his boots while he gazes upon the beautiful, blue stretch of lake. Sun hanging low on the horizon, sky a far deeper color of orange than earlier.

           They’ve been at this for over an hour.

           Sam glances behind him, skin crawling as he sees nothing changed since last he looked. Jack stationed on one edge of the circle, Michael at the other. Dean between them, his eyes closed. Lying deathly still over the sigils scratched into the earth. His skin pale, and both hands tightly clasped around tan fabric folded over Dean’s lap.

           He hates this. What Dean’s doing. That Sam cannot help. And how it’s their only option.

           Jack saw this once before. A variation of it, actually. “When I killed Nick,” he said, handing out copies of photographs he printed out amongst their little group. “I found him in the middle of resurrecting Lucifer –“

           “If he just had a little more patience,” Dean sneered. “Chuck could’ve saved him a whole lot of effort, though I’d doubt it’d end any differently.” Adam nodded at Dean’s side, studying his copy with interest like Sam did. Trying to identify the scene Jack captured. Dean continued, not even addressing the image. “Do you think this can work?”

           “Given who we’re doing this for, no,” he admitted, “the spell Nick found would only open a portal to the Empty, wake Lucifer up. It would then be up to him to cross over, and with his amount of power that wouldn’t be difficult.” Jack then opened the book he brought, pushing it into the middle of the table. Pointing at an illustration. “But I think I can modify it. Although…”

           Sam set the photo down, facing Jack. “What is it Jack?”

           “I… well, it’d be very complicated,” he started, not meeting Sam’s gaze. “For it to work, me and Michael would need to use all of our power.”

           “To wake Cas? Jack, you did it before –“

           “When the Empty was asleep,” Jack said, “when they weren’t expecting it. When Cas hadn’t already ticked them off… they’ve already lost him once.”

           “And they won’t be keen on losing Cas again,” Dean added. A storm darkening his hooded stare. Sam watched him sink into his seat, memories from that awful night weighing on Dean. It haunted him, too. Finding Dean curled around himself the next morning, unresponsive, incoherently mumbling about their friend. Shoulder stained with dried blood. In time, he recovered as he always did. Sometimes though Sam feared he’d turn and there Dean would be. Shattered completely with no chance of putting those pieces together. Stuck in that helpless ball, trembling. Forever praying. That’s not the case now. No sign of careful fragility anymore, the storm passing. Back ramrod straight Dean carelessly flicked the photo away. “What else you need?”

           “Ingredients that we have here at the Bunker, I’m sure,” Jack continued, “a nice open space where we can perform the ritual. Something that belonged to Cas, that will resonate with his unique wavelength. And finally…” he trailed off near the end, faltering.

           “Jack,” Sam said, “What else?”

           “One of us would have to go in,” he told them, “but… there’s a chance they might not come back.” For the first second, there’s silence. The next –

           “Jack, there has to be –“

           “I’ll do it.”

           He whipped his head towards him, scowling at the grim determination of Dean’s face. Lips thinned in a small line. Brows bent aggressively. An expression that appeared whenever Dean grabbed onto the most idiotic, suicidal thought he had and stubbornly refused to surrender. He’d refuse any option other than what he decided. Arguing with him when he’s like that was impossible.

           Sam tried regardless.

           “There has to be another way,” Sam whispered, both men waiting as Jack and Michael recreated Nick’s sigil-work in the dirt. Leaning against Baby’s frame, drinking in silence. “Billie always threatened she’d throw us in there one day, why don’t we ask her –“

           “She’d never agree to it, Sammy. Too messy.” Dean wouldn’t look at Sam. Not since he exploded on Dean back at the Bunker. Called him selfish, that the last thing Cas wants is Dean endangering himself. His tantrum earned Sam a swift right hook he still has the bruise from, cheek mottled blue and green. Dean’s knuckles newly scabbed. “Billie plays by the universe’s rules… and we make our own.”

           “Yes, finally. Rules we fought so hard to make, I…” Sam sighed, “we were finished, Dean. No more big risks. We won. Facing the Empty… there’s no do-over button if you get stuck there.”

           “I’m okay with that.”

           “And yet you’re still doing this?”

           “It’s like I told you Sam,” he said, finally deigning Sam with a frigid glance. Steely resolve sharpening it, cutting through him. “Have been telling you. You don’t have a clue what’s really going on. If you knew… you’d see there’s no risk at all.”

           Sam’s temper flares now, pain edging his vision. “Then let me in, Dean. Tell me. Why are you so afraid of –“

           “I’m not afraid –“

           “You clearly are,” he hissed, “otherwise you wouldn’t be throwing yourself into another near-death experience instead of having a simple conversation with me.” Sam reels his anger back, softening. Pleading. “I want Cas here as much as you do, Dean. But there has to be another way.”

           Dean drained his bottle and then threw it. Far enough so when it exploded the glass wouldn’t touch them. “If it were Eileen stuck in there,” he said, “you’d know there wasn’t.”

           He paused. “Eileen? What’s that have to –“

           Jack called, saying they were ready. Dean stalked off towards them. Sam left behind in his confusion. “Do you have the anchor?”

           “Right here.” He showed Jack the trench coat, grip on it gentle like if he squeezed any tighter Dean might rip it. “Where do you want me?”

           Sam remembered Dean rambled on about its sturdiness. Boasting how he gassed the store clerk with half-truths to not draw suspicion when asking after ‘protective outerwear’. Buying it because he noticed a tear along the seam of Cas’s armpit. “I thought he’d stitch it up,” Dean laughed, whipping his purchase like a cape. Playing with it. Sam chuckled at his brother’s antics. “But he just shrugged and carried on like it was nothing. I asked him why he left it and he tells me that it’d be a waste of his grace.”

           “Then why didn’t you mend it for him?”

           “…What?”

           “Come on, Dean,” Sam said, “you’re a master with the needle. And I’m not talking about sewing gashes… do you recall the Luke Skywalker costume you made me from those stolen motel bed sheets?”

           Dean blushed, “I was just a kid then, Sammy…”

           “Still the best costume, better than any of those store-bought ones at school.”

           “Well… maybe I didn’t want to fix it,” he said, “that’s why. I mean… sure I could’ve. But then he’d rip it again and… it’s not like he can’t have another jacket! Cas needs a little more variety.”

           Sam snorted. “Yeah, because a slightly lighter brown is really crazy for him. What’s he even gonna do with it?”

           “Wear it?” Dean said, “Or… put it away, keep it here. Dude’s been living with us this long and how much stuff does he own? It might not be a huge change but it’s… it’s a start, Sam.”

           Dean was right in buying it. Ransacking Cas’s room, there wasn’t anything they could use for the spell save for the single, untouched trench coat hanging in his closet. As Sam leaves that memory, he realized too late the others began without him. Jack and Michael knelt like statues. His brother had left for the Empty.

           And he’s still there.

           Helpless while Dean pokes the bear in his cave. Sitting on the sidelines as he faces down an extraordinary being with limitless powers, like beating Chuck wasn’t pure luck. Like any of their efforts left a scratch on him. It was a group effort, what little remained of their family pitching in. Sending Chuck onto his next project. But this… it was just Dean. He was alone. And worse… Sam thinks his brother wanted it that way.

           If it were Eileen stuck in there, you’d know it wasn’t.

           When he wasn’t worrying about Dean, Sam mulled over his parting message. Trying to fit together the pieces Dean gave. He suspects it’s a simple picture. A niggling sense at the base of his skull tells Sam that the answer is clear. It always was. Except he looked past it, over and over, again and again. Never seeing the truth of it. Of Dean and Cas. Without either of them here, where he can observe them one more time – careful, in a way Sam hasn’t before – Sam doubts he will uncover much of anything.

           At least it distracts him from Dean. Until it doesn’t.

           Dean gasps, lurching forward. Coughing, spitting up bile and gagging on air. Michael collapses, exhausted. Jack almost follows but overcomes his dizziness. Sam, the only unaffected one, dashes towards. Rubs Dean’s back while he works through his nausea. How Dean lets him either shows he’s too woozy to know it’s him, or the earlier animosity was forgotten. As Dean claws at his shirt, gasping, repeating his name, Sam guesses the latter. “Yes, Dean?” he says, “What is it?”

           “Cas,” he says, voice hoarse and raw, “Where… where is he?”

           There weren’t any portals. Nor did a star shoot downwards from the sky. Their friend had not even blinked into existence with a smile and a familiar rumble.  “Cas,” Sam sighs, “Cas. Dean, I don’t think –“

           “Cas.”

           He scrambles to his feet, knocking Sam onto the ground. Dean runs across the shore and, when he reaches the lake, wades in. Fully dressed, madly waving the trench coat. Sam yells, but Dean ignores him. Hellbent on drowning himself.

           Except Sam misses it, again.

           Someone meets Dean halfway. Breaking through the lake’s surface, swimming to where the water rests above their waists. Drags his brother into a hug, spinning him. With raven hair, tanned skin, and blue eyes crinkled with joy and life and love. “Cas,” Sam says, “it’s… it worked?”

           “Of course it worked,” Jack says, “This is Dean and Cas.”

           Maybe Sam understands because of the off-hand way Jack spoke about the two men. Or, more likely, it’s when Cas – wrapped in the trench coat Dean bought him – sweeps Dean into his arms and kisses him. Dean melts under his touch, responding with an excitement that had been absent when Chuck left them alone for real. It doesn’t matter how. He finally gets it.

           Dean and Cas… they get their happy ending.

#supernatural #spn #spn15 #spn15 spec #15 and final #15x18 #15x19 #15x20 #sam winchester #dean winchester #castiel #jack kline #adam milligan #michael #destiel #deancas #destiel fanfic #deancas fanfic #this is how we 🤡 can still win

[sunshinesteves]

some prince of egypt things:

the cast is incredible. especially ralph fiennes as ramses, jeff goldblum as aaron, and of course, steve martin and martin short as hotep and huy

not only did dreamworks acknowledge at the beginning of the movie that they took some artistic liberties, but the things they changed made sense. they added more to the story - especially with making ramses moses’s brother instead of his father.

music!!!! every single song is such a goddamn bop

ofra haza (an israeli singer) played yocheved. the hebrew she sings in deliver us translates to “my good and tender son, do not be frightened and do not be scared”

when yocheved sings her lullaby to moses, she sheds two tears - one from the inner corner of each eye - and her hair blows in front of her mouth. later, when miriam sings the lullaby (also to moses) the exact same thing happens. kills me every time

music motifs!!! off the top of my head - yocheved’s lullaby plays during some significant moments when moses is still in egypt (no i don’t remember which specific moments just take my word for it), all i ever wanted plays while moses is shepherding right before the burning bush scene, deliver us plays when moses tells tzipporah about his people wanting their freedom, and the plague song is basically an all i ever wanted reprise

ok so cool thing about colors - moses is always red, ramses is blue. the accents on mose’s egypt-wear are red, so are the plumes on his horses, and the huge-ass robe thing he got from jethro. when he’s younger, ramses’s clothes are accented with blue, his horses’s plumes are blue, and so is his armor in the red sea scene. in the plague song, when half of each of their faces join to make one face, moses’s face is lit up red, ramses’s is blue. at night the palace is lit blue. the one blue thing moses owns is ramses’s ring - which he ends up giving back.

what they did with tzipporah! in the actual torah they don’t meet until moses saves her and her sisters (i’m pretty sure the whole “moses falling in” thing doesn’t happen in the torah either...stellar scene. truly) the way she’s handled in the movie just adds a lot of history and background to her and moses rather than it being out of the blue. obviously it doesn’t get off to a...great start...but i just think it’s cool that moses helping her escape leads to him finding out who he really is, which leads to him running away, which leads to them falling in love, etc. good job prince of egypt writers!!

not that it matters but making moses stupidly hot and not like 80 (which he canonically is) was. galaxy brain. thank you for making me horny for the leader of my people dreamworks

i don’t know jackshit about animation but that red sea water looked fucking real. WHAT– 

also! the fact that the bottom of the red sea isn’t just straight up flat sand cause that is literally just. not how a sea floor works? it’s like it’s own mini mountain range! and it takes them a while to cross!! FANTASTIC

when moses turns the nile to blood and there’s a little circle of water around him!! true to the source material!! (in the torah it says that it was still water for the israelites)

THE FUCKING DREAM SEQUENCE OH MY G O D

it’s so cleverly done, especially when the moses!fam is running from the egyptians and they run on the ceiling or on the pillar in front of all the drawings. the MUSIC. the COLORS. and according to my art history mother, all those trees were literally everywhere in Egyptian art. THEY👏🏼DID👏🏼THEIR👏🏼RESEARCH👏🏼 

how they tried to show just. how many people there were. like there were around 600,000 israelites!! and that’s just the men over 20!! and you could tell that it was a TON of people (especially when you see them leaving and on mount sinai)

BURNING BUSH SCENE

fun fact! the voices of god are a man’s voice and a woman’s voice layered on top of each other!! 

fun fact part two! the male god voice is the same guy who voices moses! oh the metaphors

the “who made the blind, the deaf, etc.” line is a direct quote from exodus

ANGEL OF DEATH!!!!!

obviously that’s like. a very difficult scene to do (maybe even more difficult than the bush scene??) without pissing off a lot of people and they did. a good fucking job.

moses’s hair is just. really important. you know what? zuko vibes. moses is zuko, zuko is moses, they are the same.

the kids singing in hebrew as they leave egypt are singing the song of the sea! in the torah, it’s sung as they cross the red sea. also it’s sung by a children’s choir how CUTE

it’s little but in the actual torah moses doesn’t spend much time with kids because he’s busy leading a bunch of whiny bitches (i’m jewish i’m allowed to make the joke lol) through the desert for forty years, so just that little moment where those two kids jump on his staff..he really was a leader of the people, yknow?

how when old!pharoah (no i don’t remember his name) stands in the throne room in profile and it perfectly lines up with his bigass statue of himself right outside. and then ramses does the same exact thing except his statue is like. much bigger. i think he’s overcompensating for something lol

the movie ending on the ten commandments is obviously v good but i’m just laughing because we’re just gonna. gloss over the tablet smashing lol. it’s ok i’ll let it slide

AND IT ENDS ON YOCHEVED SINGING DELIVER US AGAIN!!!! Y E S

and at the very end, three quotes about moses - one from the torah, one from the new testament, one from the quran!! 

there are lots more lol i could go on about this movie for a very long time

#this has been in my drafts since pesach #so like. 2 months at least lol #pls enjoy my prince of egypt mania #the prince of egypt #long post

[yearoftheyuki]

Details in episode 7

So, as I mentioned in my last post, this was my favorite episode so far. In this post I wanna get a little more specific as to what I really meant by that. There’s a lot I loved, I’m considering making a future post on either Akito’s  portrayel in this episode or the perfection of Kyo and Tohru’s conversation in this episode. To talk about the whole episode would be overwhelming, as I’d wanna go into everything that I loved which makes writing difficult so I really want to focus on the beach scene between Yuki and Tohru because it is very important to me and it fits the theme of my Yuki centered blog. That was the first scene I saw of the manga. That scene is so very important for Yuki’s character. And I’ve read that scene so many times, I can still remember wishing I could see it animated. That being said, when I say I loved this episode I mean that the anime really did a good job of playing it out EXACTLY how I pictured it in my head. The chances of the anime doing that are very slim because these scenes are all very subjective; we’ve all read Fruits Basket and constructed our own thoughts or interpretations, so to satistfy everyone’s thoughts would be very difficult. I happen to love this episode because this time the anime nailed it, in how I pictured this scene. Some may have pictured it differently. *𝘗𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘦 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘐 𝘸𝘳𝘰𝘵𝘦 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘱𝘰𝘴𝘵, 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘦, 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘮𝘢𝘺 𝘣𝘦 𝘢 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘱𝘭𝘦 𝘨𝘳𝘢𝘮𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘮𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘬𝘦𝘴 𝘢𝘴 𝘪𝘵 𝘩𝘢𝘴 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘣𝘦𝘦𝘯 𝘦𝘥𝘪𝘵𝘦𝘥. 𝘛𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘬 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘪𝘯 𝘢𝘥𝘷𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘨𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢𝘭𝘰𝘯𝘨 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘪𝘵!

So what did they do that I loved? Well lets start with the fact that since this scene is so important to me, it must be treated with care. The care this scene was treated with is evident in how the choices the anime team made like:

𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗖𝗢𝗟𝗢𝗥𝗦: The colors were absloutelty BEAUTIFUL in this scene. Such a soft, calming pallete that really fit the vibe of this scene. I pictured the night exactly like this; that kind of nighy where the sun is setting and blending into a purple sky (if that makes sence). It really set the tone for the whole scene; subtle but important. By subtle I mean that the colors were simple, by important I mean that they stand out enough to draw you in and make you realize that what’s going on is worth paying attention to.

𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗠𝗨𝗦𝗜𝗖: Wow, they gave this scene a special song, as they should! The music they chose was the kind that makes you choked up as your’re listening to it, in the moment. This really works because Yuki is overwhelmed at the moment with lots of feelines; love, gratitude, sadness, fear, confidence, but above all hope. And that is why he is so choked up. He is so thankful for Tohru and is now hopeful for his future because of her, and he’s trying to show her that. Seeing Yuki cry isnt enough, I think the way the violins are playing during that part really accentuate those emotions.

𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗠𝗢𝗩𝗘𝗠𝗘𝗡𝗧𝗦: Let me tell you, nothing is more pleasing than watching a scene that I read sooooo many times in pen come to “life” in animated form. It was like my manga had come to life in front of me. Sometimes the anime misses certain movements, and I get it, we don’t want a 100% copy of Takaya’s work, and neither does she. And sometimes it doesn’t fit the timing. Most people don’t notice. But when there’s a scene you’re passionate about you notice EVERYTHING. That being said, I know this part like the back of my hand. I was so happy that they didn’t leave out any movement. This was not the scene to cut things. They got every thing down, from how Yuki goes from holding Tohru, to kissing her, to leaning on her. They even made it a little more obvious that he was crying which I LOVE. Nice job😍

𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗦𝗖𝗥𝗜𝗣𝗧/𝗔𝗖𝗧𝗜𝗡𝗚: This scene stayed very true to the wording of the manga, at least from subtitles. And his voice actor KILLED it. I should make a section for the acting because he really gave it his all in this. I mean the voice crack, and the way he said “you didnt know it was always you saving me”. UGH HE NAILED THAT, I really felt that. Thats just how I pictured Yuki’s saying it! I’ll have to really listen to it when the dub comes out to extend on this part. But I love how Yuki said everything that he said in the manga, almost identical. I get upset sometimes when its not the same but thats a me thing😂 Though, I’m curious to know why they took out “I love you”? I should be more upset but idk “so dear to me” actually sounds more genuine. We know he loves her, I just thought “dear to me” was sweet. So yeah, go anime team!

𝗙𝗔𝗖𝗜𝗔𝗟 𝗘𝗫𝗣𝗥𝗘𝗦𝗦𝗜𝗢𝗡𝗦: Yuki is actually really expressive. It may not be as explicit as Kyo’s facial expressions, but you can really tune into Yuki’s feelings from watching his face. In the manga, I loved Takaya’s art during this part because I felt that Yuki’s eyes said so much during this part, without words needed. I actually think they exaggerated that in this scene, and I’m all for it. Tohru asks why he’s so sad for good reason, and we need to see that. We need to see him saying one thing but his facial expressions saying another because there’s something important that he’s not telling her. I’m so glad that the anime team really understood that.

Oh man, lets look at another please

Wow. Here in this picture we see beautiful colors (and a beautiful person hehe), a top tier facial expression, a movement directly taken from the manga, tied in with appropriate music in the background, with appropriate wording, and all done with care. THAT is what care is to me. They took a scene that I had very high expectations for and met them flawlessly. That, among other things, is the biggest reason why episode 7 has been my favorite so far✨

#fruits basket #fruits basket analysis #yuki sohma #tohru honda #yuki and tohru #fruits basket season 2 #beach arc #natuski takaya #furuba #anime #anime analysis #thank you for all who made it to the end of my post😂 #I cant help it this story means so much to me #music #art

[squarecarousel]

Interview with Caitlin Alexander

Well folks, we're nearly at the end of our Square Carousel journey, and there are just two interviews left – both with two of our longest-standing members! Today, we reconnect with Caitlin Alexander, who has been with the Square Carousel Collective from its very beginning almost 10 years ago. Although we've featured an interview with her here in the past, it's been so long that we are due for an update! When she's not freelancing or performing her duties as an SC admin extraordinaire, Caitlin works tirelessly on her craft, creating prints, products, hand lettered posters, and artwork that embrace the earthy beauty of nature. With a strong focus on environmentalism and a sense of community, her artwork exudes a warmth and complexity that draws the viewer in and invites them to stay a while. Read on for her gems of wisdom!

Make Earth Cool Again

Q: Comparing your early work from your first few years after college to your most recent pieces, you've kept a lot of the textural, playful essence of your style while refining certain elements. Has your process changed much since those early days, and if so, what do you now do differently? 

 A: Such a great question straight out of the gate! My process has changed quite a bit since I graduated in 2011 (almost a decade ago... yikes!). In college, part of my crafted identity as a brand-new illustrator was my traditional use of gouache paint. I actually, in all honestly, was kind of a snob about it, because so many people in our department worked solely digitally. I felt that digital painting was a crutch, which I suppose can be true in some cases, and possibly even more-so when you're applying that to college students, but I certainly had no ground to stand on. In reality, my snobbery kept me from learning critical tools, as I never took Photoshop or Illustrator classes, aside from the one that was required for graduation. This hindered my work a great deal outside of college, given that illustration is so often paired with graphic design, and editing work for clients was so much more difficult traditionally. In 2013, I got a job designing t-shirts, and lied to the company, saying I knew how to use Illustrator. Luckily it was remote, so I was able to teach myself without anyone hovering over me, but that was so foolish, looking back, given the expensive education I got at SCAD should have been my opportunity to learn those things. I introduced digital work more and more over the years, and by 2016 or so, I was primarily a digital artist. Gouache will always have a place in my heart, and I will still break out the tubes occasionally, but working digitally has allowed me to grow so much more as an illustrator, with the ability to edit, paint with more detail, and having more control over color and layering. 

Q: Of all the projects you've done in your professional career, which would you say is closest to your heart? 

 A: Probably the picture book I worked on a couple of years ago, titled "Cool For You." I had a lot of creative freedom for that project, and the subject matter of climate change is personally very important to me. Working with the author, Marianna, was really wonderful, as well. 

Cool For You book cover

Q: The Southwest influence on your work is pretty significant, and I think it's safe to assume you appreciate the majesty of the landscape in your region of the country. However, if you had to live in another state, which would you choose and why? 

 A: Funny you ask that, because I've actually considered moving from Texas to Colorado lately! The culture there is still very western, but I appreciate the liberal point of view (Texas has been grating on me lately, even living in Austin), and the landscape is even more stunning out there! I'd be close to so many inspiring National Parks. Plus, summers wouldn't be 8 months of the year and over 100 degrees for half of it! 

Travel West postcard (1 of 6)

Q: TV shows or movies? 

 A: Lately, Jordan and I have been watching New Girl on repeat. I'm not usually one to watch a show or movie over and over again, but I think we really just needed something light and fun, since life has been so very stressful over the last year.

Q: What's your favorite subject to draw? 

 A: This one is hard! I'm torn between people and landscapes. People are more fun and comfortable for me, and I could knock out a bunch of them quickly. Landscapes are always intimidating, and I'm nervous the whole time, feeling like I can't remember how I did it the time before. It's so strange, because it always ends up fine! But since I feel that way, the payoff is so much greater when I feel satisfied with the final result. 

Q: What would a perfect day look like for you? A: I probably would have answered this totally differently pre-COVID, but in this current world we live in, I would absolutely love to have what used to be a normal, uneventful weekend day for me: Jordan and I would sleep in a little, see an early afternoon movie at the Alamo Drafthouse where we'd eat lunch, then spend the rest of the afternoon browsing used book stores and estate sales, and then meet our friends at the neighborhood coffeehouse for dinner and Trivia Night. I will be so happy to have that again. 

Cover art for East Side Magazine

Book Lover Ladies series- The Book Clubbers

Q: What have you learned from your years at Square Carousel, whether organizing behind the scenes or as a contributor? 

 A: Oooof!! So SO many things! Wow... well, I'll go with the most obvious first: as a member, I learned how to continue to make portfolio-worthy work, even without jobs coming in. That was definitely the most valuable thing about Square Carousel, in my opinion, and hopefully what everyone else got out of it, as well. It can be so hard for fresh graduates to keep up that momentum, and the group saved many of us from becoming stagnant. In terms of running the group... it's been rewarding, but honestly very difficult throughout the years. There have been many ups and downs, and finding the right balance between structure and patience can be extremely challenging. I'm super proud of Elizabeth and myself (OG members!) for keeping it running through the messes-- we've been through some shit together! My major takeaway is the importance of diligence. Projects, businesses, organizations-- they all need at least a couple of people who just keep chugging along, always maintaining the structure (schedule and accountability) and balance (rules and lighthearted encouragement). 

Moth magnets

Q: As the readers are aware, Square Carousel drawing to a close soon. Do you have any plans for what you'll do with the extra time you'll have after our tri-weekly challenges end? 

 A: You know, I actually haven't thought about this too much yet. It's probably because I'll just fill it with more self-imposed projects and deadlines, since I was able to bring that skill I learned in Square Carousel into the rest of my career a while ago. (Or more real jobs! That would be ideal!) I'll miss the community though, and hope to find a way to keep that aspect of freelance life alive. Instagram friends, anyone? 

Q: What's your quirkiest habit? 

 A: Jordan told me recently that he found it weird and endearing that I joke-sing to my cats in the kitchen about really stupid stuff... so probably that! Official Cat Lady© status achieved.

Caitlin and Buster Keaton the Kitten

Q: What advice would you give to a newbie illustrator just starting out today? 

 A: I'd give them the hard advice that our professors didn't really give us in school: there is no way this is going to work out for you if you're not incredibly committed to pursuing it. Now, don't get me wrong-- I'm not telling anyone to have an unhealthy work/life balance because I think that's a toxic sentiment. But you have to keep illustrating and illustrating and illustrating, and arguably more importantly, keep networking and networking and networking. You're going to be rejected or ghosted more often than not, but if you really want it to work out, you're going to keep doing it anyway. And taking critiques if industry folks offer them, to grow and become better. Don't become stagnant in those critical building years.

Caitlin’s studio

Q: Anything else you would like the readers to know? 

A: Yes – thank you so much for supporting Square Carousel through our amazing ten years of challenges! We really appreciate everyone who has kept up with us, checking out the illustrations for each prompt and reading our posts and interviews. Y'all are wonderful, and we hope you'll continue to find us, wherever each of us fly from here! And on that sweet note, we say goodbye for now! Check out Caitlin’s website for more, and follow her on Instagram for new art when it drops.

Join us next time for our final interview!

#interview #caitlin alexander #illustrator #interviews #square Carousel #gouache #digital artist #artists on tumblr #artist interview #cba illustration

[ofrestlessheartsx]

Spring Break Scene || Lisbeth

TAGGING: Annabeth McLean & Lisette Gilbert ( @lisetterosegilbert )

WHAT: Nipple Clamps & Wax Play

ANNABETH

Not getting to fall asleep with Emerson and Lisette had been a struggle the first couple of nights. She found that she would wake up in the middle of the night and reach out for people that weren't there. And it left her sleep schedule not very well completed. But she had made it through to the night that she was scening with Lisette and she was so excited. The submissive was laying down on the bed looking absolutely gorgeous, naked and open, and so trusting. "Remember that if you need to use your safeword at any time, you use it." She waited for the confirmation and then leaned down to kiss her. "You're such a good girl." Her fingers trailed along Lisette's body, taking her time to draw the need and yearning from the submissive, watching as goosebumps arose along her skin.

LISETTE

Lisette's struggled immensely with having none of Emerson or Annabeth to sleep with, and so she's a bit exhausted because she's not getting good rest. But the scene is definitely enough to wake her up and make her happy, and she's so ready. Laying there, wide-eyed, she nods at the instruction. "Of course Miss, I'll remember." The praise makes her beam, and the light touch makes her whimper softly.

ANNABETH

Her fingers dragged along her body slowly and then leaned down so that her lips could trail along her body in the same pattern that her fingers had taken before. She ignored her breasts and the space between her legs, but did her best to ensure that almost every other inch of skin on her front was accounted for. "Beautiful." When she felt like she had accomplished what she set out to do, her fingers finally moved to Lisette's breasts, thumbs circling her nipples gently and just barely.

LISETTE

The hardest thing early in the scene is trying to stay still, especially when Anna seemed to avoid every single part of her that's craving touch. As each touch of lips and fingers left trails of goosebumps in their wake she turned from words to whimpers. "T-Thank you, Miss," Lisette managed, back arching a little in response to the attention to her nipples.

ANNABETH

She watched as her chest arched up into the touch, smiling at the look of her. She counted herself lucky to spend time with Lisette, get to know her, to see her like this. She leaned down, her lips and tongue coming into play. She waited until the buds were hardened peaks, begging for more attention and then she pulled back. She grabbed the clamps and looked at the submissive, waiting for Lisette to look at her. "Just breathe through it." Anna expressed before carefully placing the first clamp.

LISETTE

Lisette was slowly and deliciously coming undone as Anna continued lavishing attention on her nipples that left her whining and keening. Annabeth's name passed her lips a few times, as did some pleas and soft begging, and when she saw the clamps come out she did her best to try and set it all aside for a moment and still. "Yes, Miss," she nodded, body tensing as she inhaled, and as the clamp dug into her she exhaled in quick gasps. "Shit," she whimpered. "Thank you, Miss."

ANNABETH

She gave Lisette a few moments to relax before then placing the other clamp on. She tugged on them just lightly and then leaned down to kiss Lisette. "You're a good girl and I'm very proud of you." Anna breathed before turning to the wax that had been prepared. "Now if this is too hot, I need you to tell me immediately, no playing around." When she received the okay, she nodded and let a drop of purple wax drip on her stomach.

LISETTE

Lisette breathed through the discomfort, letting herself come off the bed a little as needed until she could relax and receive the second. That went easier, and a few moments later she was looking up at Anna with a confident nod. “I understand Miss, thank you.” The wax hit her skin and she jumped, more surprised than pained, but quickly got in position again. “It’s okay, Miss,” she promised. “It’s good.”

ANNABETH

When Lisette said that it was okay, Anna let out a relieved breath and offered her a smile. "Good girl. Now just relax and enjoy." Anna mused. She took her time with the wax, allowing it to soothe the submissive. She changed colors a few times, creating a splatter of brightness against the submissive's stomach. She told Lisette to close her eyes at some point within the scene, wanting her to rest and enjoy just being taken care of. When she was finished with her stomach, she picked up a red candle and took to creating a heart on Lisette's breast. "Beautiful."

LISETTE

Lisette lay back and did her best to relax, although each breath in and out made her feel the clamps all over again and the wax still made her jump just a little whether she knew it was coming or not. She had no way of seeing the patterns that were being created, so it didn't bother her to shut her eyes, and it helped her simply enjoy Anna's attention. "Thank you, Miss," she smiled, breathing slow and body completely relaxed. "So are you."

ANNABETH

She smiled and leaned down and kissed her gently. She then pulled back and moved between her legs. She dripped a couple of lines on her mound. She then set the candles aside. "Think I will find some wetness between these legs of yours?" Anna questioned gently, dragging her nails up and down her thighs gently.

LISETTE

Lisette wasn't expecting the kiss but she arched easily up into it, smiling as Anna worked the wax lower. Those she hissed at, just a little, but they still weren't painful enough to stop. "I, um," Lisette babbled. "I think that's really really likely, Miss. Almost certain, actually."

ANNABETH

She grinned at the look on her face and dragged her fingers towards her center. "You were right. I did find a lot of wetness here for me." Anna mused, letting her finger circle around the submissive's clit slowly and purposefully. "I want you to cum whenever you need to cum. Don't hold back. Because I'm going to make you cum over and over again."

LISETTE

More than when the clamps were applied, more than when the wax was being dropped, when Anna's finger found her clit was when Lisette wished she were tied down. She didn't want to squirm or be difficult, but it was so hard to stay still when she was being touched so well. "I thought you might, Miss," she confirmed with a breathless nod. She hadn't expected such generous terms, but Lisette was hardly going to turn them down. "Yes, Miss, thank you so much, Miss!"

ANNABETH

Anna didn't waste anything time, her fingers circled her clit, wanting to bring Lisette over the edge. Lisette was so beautiful when she came and Anna loved being the person to get her there. When she came, Anna moved between her thighs this time using her mouth to draw her towards her peak once more. She moved from fingers to mouth, bringing Lisette to the peak over and over until she was begging her to stop.

LISETTE

Lisette came fast and hard, crying out Anna's name, and had barely a moment of coming down before she was pushed back toward her peak. In the end she'd lost count, and she was a glorious mess who could only beg for the pleasure that had become so overwhelming to stop before she couldn't stay awake any longer. "Misspleasepleaseplease," the words ran together in one long plea.

ANNABETH

She kissed up Lisette's body. "Okay, okay. We're done. You're such a good girl for me, Lisette. You did so well. I'm so proud of you." She murmured gently, kissing her head softly. She gave Lisette a few moments to relax before carefully removing the nipple clamps. She looked them over to make sure that everything was okay. "Good girl. So good." Anna then took a photo of the heart on Lisette's chest before then removing the wax slowly and carefully.

LISETTE

Lisette's chest heaved as she came down from what felt like a constant high, extremities still twitching in the aftermath. "Thank you, Miss," she managed, not quite sure what she was saying thank you for yet but knowing it needed to be said. The clamps hurt when removed as the blood rushed back into her nipples, but it was a sweet release and allowed her to finally let her whole body relax. "Thank you so much, Miss. That was amazing."

ANNABETH

Anna smiled softly and checked over her body to ensure that there were no marks that needed to be taken care of before curling up next to Lisette on the bed. She wrapped her arms around her and kissed her head gently. "Thank you for being such a good girl for me all the time. Get some rest okay? I'll wake you up in time for you to get back to your room. Promise." Anna breathed gently.

LISETTE

With the wax removed and the adrenaline leaving her body, Lisette was eager to curl into Anna's warm body. "Mmm, yes Miss. Try and get some rest too, please," she murmured, concerned with Annabeth's well-being before her own as always.

#post: annabeth mclean #annabeth mclean: lisette gilbert para #para: annabeth mclean

[the-jade-cross]

Knight of the Forest - Chapter IX

From where she stood perched on the seamstress’s little crate box, Lillia felt like she was on a pedestal and it frightened her. In a few days she would be standing before the whole court swearing her love and Fidelity to the man of her dreams and she was positive that she would mess up, skip a word or worse, drop something! Wouldn't it be terrible if she tripped over her gown as ser Jaime escorted her to the altar?

Lillia cringed at the thought. At least the wedding ceremony would only be an hour long at the most. She would be married to Loras for the rest of her life! How would she be able to even share a meal with him without saying something stupid? She wished she had had longer to get her nerves under control but when Maya and Oberyn announced that they would be having a long engagement, Lillia and Loras's marriage had been moved from three weeks to three days in the future!

“ you look absolutely stunning my lady,” the seamstress assured her, “ the wedding gown will be ready by tomorrow afternoon! Now for the other dresses.”

Lillia hopped down from the box once the woman finished measuring her and approached the table where the seamstress and her team had drawn up some sketches of different outfits. As was custom, a newlywed bride would be outfitted new gowns for her wedded life but Lillia had somehow managed to swindle Ser Jaime into talking to a few people and instead of thirty separate new outfits, Lillia had managed to only order six. Two everyday dresses, a nightgown, two party dresses and a dress for cold climate.

The girl studied the drawings and she suddenly came to realize why Margaery loved dressing people up against their will. Every one of the dresses were unique in color, design and cut. Lillia knew that Mace Tyrell would be expecting them to be happy in their marriage together even if the love within was one sided and he would expect grandchildren and Lillia knew she would not get pregnant unless she could entice Loras into her bed and what better way to do that than wearing a low cut dress? Or nightgown... But what was the point of an enticing nightgown if Loras was not enticed to join her in her room? So both the nightgown and one of the dresses?

It had better be one of the daily dresses or she would be seen as a regular whore by everyone if she wore a low cut dress to a party. Why was picking outfits out so difficult and trying on the brain!? Finally she snatched up a lovely but simple green dress drawing.

“I like this one.” she told the seamstress.

The woman beamed and went to agree when a third voice cut in and made both Lillia and the seamstress turn. There stood Loras with his arms lazily crossed over his chest and a smirk on his lips as he leant against the door frame.

“I rather like the dress you are wearing at the moment.” he said.

Lillia looked down at her attire and blushed Crimson when she realized what she was wearing. The dress was cut so low and fitted so tightly that her breasts were half visible and pushed up so that they were pronounced. The dress ended at her knees revealing her bare legs and feet and the fabric was so thin that you could see the color of her skin!

“ these are my undergarments!” she squeaked at him, crossing her arms over her chest as the seamstress assisted her in pulling on a very thick cotton robe.

Loras his eyes widen in shock before he smirked, doing a ridiculously good job at not appearing flustered or turned on by the rather revealing outfit that his bride to be was garbed in. He walked over to the two women until he was towering over the very flustered Lillia.

“ well, it is nice to know that my future wife has very tempting taste in nightgowns. Madame, be a dear and select the rest of my lady’s outfits based on what you feel she would like. My lady, would you care to join me on a walk?”

Lillia paused and considered her fiance suspiciously for a moment before she grabbed the dress that she had worn earlier that day and dove behind the curtain to change. She emerged a moment later and followed the beaming Loras out of the room period it was a short calm a quiet walk down the corridor to the battlements and Lillia wondered if Loras had just asked her on a walk for the sake of being nice and not because he actually wished to speak with her.

“ I hope you don't mind that once we are married we may have to live in Kings Landing for some time period I am only a knight and third in line for Highgarden. My father assures me that he has a plan but until I discover if his plan actually exists, we will have to live here.”

Lillia nodded, “that sounds reasonable. I have lived here for a few years and so far I have remained sane alive. After all, Evelyn and Ser Jaime lived here together when they were married for a few months and they also managed to share a room without complaint so I feel that we will be able to manage just fine.”

Loras stopped walking and turned to the girl, “do... do you see us ever being like that? I mean... the perfect couple who love each other's company and share bedroom... do you see us like that?”

Lillia tilted her head as she pondered the question before shrugging, “ I like to imagine us like that but I am not sure if it would be the way that we would live. After all, Willas and Garlan complain daily of your snoring habits in their letters and I do happen to have powers of the earth. I may attack you with your breakfast peas in the morning at the table.”

Loras chuckled and smirked, “you know you love me. You would not want your husband dented now would you?”

Lillia's face went grave. A fine time to use a figure of speech that was more real and true than Loras realized. She tossed her hair over her shoulder and began to walk off.

“ do not underestimate my morning grumpy moods.”

Loras trotted over and caught up to the girl before grabbing her arm and turning her to look at him. “Lillia... you are important to me... you always have been and I would like to think that you care something for me too... I truly wish for this marriage to work out not just because it will make our parents happy because I want you to be happy married to me since I know that I will be happy with you as my wife.”

Lillia smiled softly but felt her heart stop period of course he cared about her even if that was the extent of his affections. He would be happy to wed any girl who would feed him, clothe him and bear him children. It just so happened that she was the girl he would be married to and expect those things from. She reached out and left her arm through his.

“ then let us make the most of this marriage and try to make each other happy.” she suggested.

Loras beamed and cradled her hand with his free one period “deal. On the condition that there will be no modeling of vegetables or by vegetables.”

Lillia giggled and found herself beaming, happier than she had been in a very long time... Even if Loras still did not love her back.

******

“My lady,” the maid Maria called, attempting to rouse the heavy sleeper.

Lillia rolled over from where she had been laying out spread like a pancake on her bed. Her hair was sticking out in all places making it look like a beaver had made its home on her scalp. Maria smiled at the girl’s disheveled state before she began opening the drapes and pulling out the things required to prepare the girl for her day.

“You are getting married today my lady!” the girl said, a huge smile lighting up her face as Lillia swung her legs over the edge of the bed and sat up groggily. “Alice is bringing your wedding dress up in a moment and once you are dressed, we will get your hair styled. What are you considering? Up or down?”

Lillia shrugged as she grabbed her thin lace robe and wrapped it around herself as she yawned, “I am not sure… Marg…Queen Margaery gave me a very detailed explanation of how having your hair up or down can clash with a dress… I am not sure what hairstyle would best suit the gown.”

Maria smiled, “Well then why don’t we get you washed up and we can take the dress to Queen Margaery’s room. That way you can get her opinion and since her chambers are closer to the great hall, you will not have to walk as far in the gown.”

“That sounds perfect,” Lillia stated, beaming at Maria.

About an hour later the girl was wrapped in a thick robe as Maria escorted her down the corridor to Margaery’s room. Tommen had left earlier to discuss the ceremony with Tywin and Cersei and hopefully telling them to not cause a scene. The moment Lillia stepped through the door of the bedroom, Margaery practically threw her into a chair and got Maria and Alice started on doing her hair while Margaery and her handmaiden Rose set about laying out the gown.

“I’m sorry that Maya and Nanteza couldn’t be here for this,” Margaery told the girl when the room became uncommonly silent.

Lillia smiled sadly at her in the mirror as Alice continued to pin up her wild curls. “It’s alright… they had things to do that couldn’t wait.”

After all of her curls were pinned up and out of her face, decorated by beautiful pink peach blossoms from outside Margaery’s bedroom window, the three-woman worked together to slip the gown on from Lillia’s feet up. That is until they realized just how soiled Lillia’s feet were, and they had to take a pitstop to give them a thorough and rather painful scrubbing. After finally getting the dress on and laced up as well as finally finishing buttoning the 200 pearl buttons on the back of the dress, Margaery went digging through her collection of shoes until she found a pair of white sandals. She knew that Lillia hated closed toe shoes as well as heels which ruled out the majority of Margaery’s shoes.

“We should have remembered to tell the seamstress to prepare you shoes as well!” Margaery huffed. “I just forgot because… well…”

“I never wear shoes,” Lillia finished for her.

Margaery chuckled but when she reached into one of her small boxes containing the millions of jewelry pieces she had accumulated, she frowned.

“I can’t find that pin,” she muttered, “You know… the pin you use to help hold two pieces together. It has a needle and then a little cap.”

While Maria and Alice began scouring the whole room for the pin and Rose was trying to keep Margaery from freaking out and bursting into tears, Lillia felt that this was the perfect time to escape the flutter and feathers. After all, she had forgotten her necklace that Jaime had procured for her and she dearly wished to wear it since it would go well with her neckless dress. She trotted down the hallway, the embroidered beads on her long but slender dress tinkling against each other in the absolutely silent corridor. Everyone must be downstairs preparing for the celebration which made the girl both relieved and also terrified.

Lillia paused when she reached her door, hand hovering over the doorhandle. Perhaps if she dropped in and said hello to Loras? She weighed the options. When Lillia had told her mother that it was Northern custom that the groom would not see the bride until she was escorted to the alter since it was bad luck to see the groom or bride on the wedding day, Lysa Arryn had whipped the girl over the knuckles for reading such “trash” and had told her there was no such thing as luck. Lillia pondered whether or not she should hold fast to the custom but decided that since she was definitely in the South, no one would care.

Padding down the hallway in her bare feet, careful as to not trip over the long dress that hugged her curves elegantly, Lillia rapped her knuckles against the door softly. She received no answer so she wondered if Loras was still asleep or perhaps he had already left. Lifting the handle, she poked her head inside.

“Loras?” she called softly.

Lillia heard loud and urgent rustling to her left and she peered around the door, only for her eyes to widen and her hand slip from the handle, allowing the door to swing all the way open. There lying in his bed was Loras, stark naked and at his side… Olyver.

Loras’s eyes were just as wide, if not wider than Lillia’s as he looked upon his bride to be, garbed in creamy white with her curls pulled back neatly to reveal her smooth skin which had suddenly lost all of its usual rosy color. When Loras heard people say that their face “fell”, he had no idea what that necessarily meant until he saw the look on Lillia’s face. It was like her body lost all point of life, her limbs hanging limp, the smile gone from her face but there was no frown there… but disbelief and her eyes no longer were crinkled in joy or pinched in anger… but lax in misery.

“Oh god, Lill…” the man started as he reached for his trousers.

Lillia swung on her heel and surprisingly for a girl in a floor length gown, she was running incredibly fast. When Loras finally managed to get his feet into his trousers and he rushed to the door, there was not a single sign of the girl anywhere. Instead of chasing after her like he knew he should, he went searching for the rest of his clothes and began to snap orders at Olyver to make the bed and make himself scarce.

Meanwhile Lillia tore down the hallway until she reached Margaery’s room and she flew through the door, closing it harshly behind her and leaning against it as her only life support. The three handmaidens and Margaery lifted their heads at the noise but the smiles on their faces melted when they saw the tears streaming down Lillia’s face.

“Oh Lils!” Margaery cried, rushing to the girl’s side and pulling her into a secure hug. “What on earth happened?”

Lillia shook her head and Margaery motioned to the maids to make their exit. Once they were alone, Margaery pulled away and looked Lillia in the eye.

“You need to tell me what happened! Who made you cry?” she insisted.

Lillia sighed shakily as she wiped her face with her bare hands. “If in the next couple of years, your father asks why Loras and I have not had children yet, you have my full permission to tell him that Loras will be banned from my bed chambers until I am 50!”

As Lillia pulled away from Margaery and went hunting in the wash room for some cool water to splash on her face, Margaery groaned. Of all days to mess up Loras, why today? The Tyrell girl stepped out of the bedroom and was just in time to see her beast of a brother running towards her.

“Where is she?” the boy demanded but Margaery crossed her arms over her chest and glared daggers at the lad.

“You’re lucky she didn’t rail you into the ground! You are not allowed to see her until the ceremony and I would not be surprised if she called off the wedding today!”

#got #game of thrones #Jaime Lannister #loras #Loras Tyrell x oc #Loras Tyrell x reader #Loras tyrell